Official Mods
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Join Date: 2007-12-21 Member: 63231Members
Join Date: 2007-12-21 Member: 63231Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Which NSC is this?</div>I'm pretty sure one of the early major mods to NS2 will be "Natural Selection Classic" or something along those lines. I know a fair few people who don't like NS2 ideas since they deviate too much from NS1.
The problem I see is that there will be many variants of "NSC" or other mods. I can imagine some people wanting straight NS1 as much as possible; some people wanting NS1 but with the ability for friendly units to move through each other, Ã la TF2, so Onos (Onoses? Oni?) won't get stuck on the smaller units; NS1 but with the Fade's projectile being powerful again; NS1 but with BLAH BLAH BLAH. It would be easy to join a server claiming to be Natural Selection Classic and all of a sudden discover too late that the Onos doesn't have Devour because the mod devs agreed with UWE that it was a really annoying skill.
My question is, would it be possible to have some "official" modifications out there? Maybe in the search filter, having "Natural Selection Classic" or any other main, popular mods (this idea is meant to come up after NS2 is released, obviously) pop up as options? That way we would have a clear mod with certain sets of rules, instead of having to ask how a server's particular NSC mod works each time we join a different server. Variants of the "official" mod would inevitably pop up, but having one mod being called an official mod would alleviate the problem greatly.
Or, actually, an alternative is to have descriptions pop up about a mod each time we look at a non-vanilla NS2 server. That idea works better. I feel like an idiot now.
The problem I see is that there will be many variants of "NSC" or other mods. I can imagine some people wanting straight NS1 as much as possible; some people wanting NS1 but with the ability for friendly units to move through each other, Ã la TF2, so Onos (Onoses? Oni?) won't get stuck on the smaller units; NS1 but with the Fade's projectile being powerful again; NS1 but with BLAH BLAH BLAH. It would be easy to join a server claiming to be Natural Selection Classic and all of a sudden discover too late that the Onos doesn't have Devour because the mod devs agreed with UWE that it was a really annoying skill.
My question is, would it be possible to have some "official" modifications out there? Maybe in the search filter, having "Natural Selection Classic" or any other main, popular mods (this idea is meant to come up after NS2 is released, obviously) pop up as options? That way we would have a clear mod with certain sets of rules, instead of having to ask how a server's particular NSC mod works each time we join a different server. Variants of the "official" mod would inevitably pop up, but having one mod being called an official mod would alleviate the problem greatly.
Or, actually, an alternative is to have descriptions pop up about a mod each time we look at a non-vanilla NS2 server. That idea works better. I feel like an idiot now.
Comments
In DotA people use to create false maps from the original all the time, just so they can get some kind of advantage by adding cheats they only know of. It could be the same problem with NS2 that could be avoided.
A solution would be to create mod-IDs that are unique and can only be accessed on an per-account basis. That way when you filter for a mod-ID there won't be any mix-ups and if you create a list for the most popular mods it will most likely appear there without any cluttering.
And of course it would require that you can invite more people to mod-ID if you're on a larger team.
There's a difference between most mods and DotA. DotA is basically 'just a map', not a mod. It's easy to modificate it and then host a bnet game.
Meanwhile to gain advantage from a NS mod you'll have to modificate the plugin (takes probably more knowledge than using the WC3 map editor), get yourself a server, pay for it and then get players there. Once people figure out something isn't right, they'll leave and you're left with an empty server that you've paid for. It's possible I guess, but I can't see it being worth all the work and money it takes.
Meanwhile to gain advantage from a NS mod you'll have to modificate the plugin (takes probably more knowledge than using the WC3 map editor), get yourself a server, pay for it and then get players there. Once people figure out something isn't right, they'll leave and you're left with an empty server that you've paid for. It's possible I guess, but I can't see it being worth all the work and money it takes.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
True, I wasn't really aware how server hosting comes into play. However the idea that it's harder to get up a mod than a map with the sole intent of cheating is a bit far fetched.
To modify a mod shouldn't be too hard, you steal the code and then edit numbers. Especially since they said that creating a weapon only took a few hundreds of lines of code, you could easily just skim through it and see what the integers are called and just go from that. We know cheaters are a minority but that's not really a reason to just ignore them.
However they have a budget so I understand why it's just as well to ignore the whole thing. But maybe this coincides with some idea they have already they want implemented.
Anyway, the more ways to prevent abuse the better in my opinion.
Classic feel 1.0 1.04 2.0 3.2
Classic feel 1.0 1.04 2.0 3.2<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, the point is that different people will make different mods or mods of mods (if such is possible) with slight alterations. If there was an official NSC mod with only one team/person working on it and updating it, then what you're saying works. But since a bunch of people will make different versions, straight numbering won't work.
And this is the problem I have with LUA editing. Every game that has allowed freeform changes like that becomes a convoluted ****ing mess of every server having its own god damn rules.
UWE needs to be informed of / has to gather the most popular mods and releases a quick patch, adding them to a table that's sporting checkboxes for the stuff you want to play with.
i.e. …
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obviously, you will have the display of latency, players and map as well.
and lua is great because every server can make its own custom mod