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Scripting Build Videos

Discussion in 'Announcements' started by Gunnar, Dec 30, 2012.

  1. Leoprime

    Leoprime Shopkeep Stealer

    Messages:
    184
    [​IMG]
    It takes time for it to show that you have a gold account on the forums.
     
  2. Mazey

    Mazey Haxor Global Moderator Forum Moderator Staff Alumni Donator Official Server Admin

    Messages:
    1,914
    Devs never gave a date. lel
     
  3. Arcrave

    Arcrave http://tinyurl.com/ArcravesTheme Tester
    1. SharSharShar - [SHARK]

    Messages:
    262
    I'm both confused and curious as to where you're getting this information, and how its believable enough to post.
     
  4. KAG 1.0 @ WikiLeaks?
     
    rocker2, PumpkingSlice, JacKD and 3 others like this.
  5. Kyzak

    Kyzak Ballista Bolt Thrower Tester
    1. The Young Blood Collective - [YB]

    Messages:
    440
    I would take Ninja12's post as wild speculation, at the most; the scripting build will be released when it's ready, and that's all we can know for sure.
     
    FuzzyBlueBaron likes this.
  6. SlyStalker

    SlyStalker Shopkeep Stealer

    Messages:
    423
    hmm really? strange... i can play on gold servers + customise my head though... what do i do after i enter in the access code for premium for my name to show up in gold? actually it doesnt really matter to me much
     
  7. Canadian98

    Canadian98 Haxor Tester

    Messages:
    860
    It takes awhile for the forum to register that you're gold.
     
  8. Ninja12

    Ninja12 Haxor

    Messages:
    223
    :p I use clues.
    </br>--- merged: Jan 12, 2013 4:25 PM ---</br>
    Or maybe I'm a dick.
     
  9. goodyman8

    goodyman8 Bison Rider

    Messages:
    1,025
    And mind showing us where this super sekrit clue is?
     
  10. Ninja12

    Ninja12 Haxor

    Messages:
    223
    ...Go on devlog, go to the post on Jan. 21, AND LOOK AT THE WHOLE POST.
     
  11. Mazey

    Mazey Haxor Global Moderator Forum Moderator Staff Alumni Donator Official Server Admin

    Messages:
    1,914
    Done, and now? Just quote the thing you mean
     
  12. Ninja12

    Ninja12 Haxor

    Messages:
    223
    'The wait won't be much longer..'
    '..a few gameplay videos'
    '...scripting preview, and release shortly after..'
     
  13. goodyman8

    goodyman8 Bison Rider

    Messages:
    1,025
    Not everyone has the same definition of soon and not much longer.
    I remember at one point a company said "SOON" and we had to wait 1 year.
    Basically, its out when its done.
    That can be today, next day,month,year or who knows when.
     
  14. Mazey

    Mazey Haxor Global Moderator Forum Moderator Staff Alumni Donator Official Server Admin

    Messages:
    1,914
    Soon for indie devs is 6months, but it will possibly be shorter, maybe 2/3 months?
     
  15. Ne3zy

    Ne3zy Haxor

    Messages:
    308
    Angelscript update will need a lot of well explained tutorials if you want modders to mod (more than 2 people) I looked at the scripting documentation and if you don't already know how to script with C# you won't be able to script with angelscript... Futhermore it will be twice as hard for those who don't speak english very well.
    So yeah if it'll be like that, that's really a pity because not everybody have the time to learn C#.. And not every programmer want to mod, so we'll have like 2 or 3 modders only ? :/
     
  16. I'm sure well get some good "angelscript modding in KAG" tutorials in the wiki (I'm certain ill probably write some myself after getting comfortable with the new API). Plus, from what I've heard, a lot of basic stuff will still be changeable in configs, making very basic modifications easy for non-programmers.

    In my experience as a software dev for communities like this, a more robust API is far better than a watered down one. It allows for more growth, better quality mods, further development past the company's release cycle, and overall a much happier community.

    I wouldn't worry about the learning curve for the API. if the game's good enough, the rest will follow.
     
    FG, AnRK, Contrary and 2 others like this.
  17. Geti

    Geti Please avoid PMing me (poke a mod instead) THD Team Administrator Global Moderator

    Messages:
    3,730
    Some parts are very unlikely to break, such as the blob interface (used for all actors, projectiles etc). Modding those could be considered "safe". Things like the map are not likely to remain properly stable because at some point we'd like to add custom tiles and the like (something that hasn't made it due to lack of time), and as such the structs used to store tiles would very likely get pushed around a little, numbers that tiles are on, and even the way the map responds to damage might change.
    The rules code is kind of a 50:50, it's been modified quite a bit over the course of development but is stabilising now. Hopefully no large changes there are warranted.

    If something breaks, we'll be sure to document what's changed and why. Giving an estimate of overall stability is difficult because I'm not sure what people are going to be hacking on (modders always manage to surprise us), and while we've done most of our work with blobs because we're creating game content, someone might want to create extensive map interaction stuff. If you were to create a large mod in the style of AAL for cortex command then it'd be unlikely to be broken by future changes, but if you were to make a bunch of map dependent stuff then you might have to modify it down the line.

    The basics of scripted map loading and generation are done though, which is a plus :) I'm going to be writing an example generator in the next couple of days.

    The blob stuff should keep everyone busy for ages though, really - it's like all of the actor modding in cortex command rolled into one reasonably simply separated interface.


    As for dates of release, we're not saying anything concrete.


    Re: "aw man this is like programming" - yeah, because that's exactly what it is. We're making the basics of changing a gamemode pretty simple to understand though, with a config function at the top of the rules scripts. The war one lets you change how much food it takes to spawn a unit quickly, how long the pre-game warmup is, how long the game goes for before a tie is declared, how much food you start with, and how much wood it takes to upgrade your base to each level. If you have no idea what you're doing with programming, you can still tweak numbers to give your server a unique flavour. As splittingred said, a robust API is significantly better than a simplified one. There'd be no point making the whole thing data driven and programmable and then only giving you access to the same shit the config files have access to :)
     
  18. Will modding CBlob be simply extending the class, or "overriding"/redefining it, Ruby-style? (Or better, both?) Curious to see how this would work.

    This is crucial. If you all do this, I promise it will make every modder happy. Regular changelogs available somewhere that we can view will be excellent, and necessary.

    Also, I'd like to ask if you all will adhere to normal software versioning standards - meaning (for others reading who aren't familiar):
    [major].[minor].[patch].[dev]

    IOW, will modders be able to get a good idea if their mod might break based on version #s alone? It'd be great to not have to worry about mods in a 1.0.3 to 1.0.4 patch, for instance; but totally reasonable to check the changelogs on a minor release to see if the affected code would break the mod. Curious if we'd move away from the "build" model and more toward a more traditional format.

    Might be neat, some things off the top of my head I'd probably quickly look into as a modder:
    • The ability to "insert" objects (blobs?) on the map at the start (pre-built workshops, "abandoned" cities, etc etc)
    • The ability to spawn at random times blobs into the map during gameplay (a la zombies)
    • The ability to cause events to happen during gameplay as a player reaches a certain point in the map (think: Indiana Jones mod where you have to escape a dungeon)
    • "Collapsible" cliffs/bridges that fall when you touch them
    • Seasons (snow, rain, etc)
    FWIW, definitely don't expect all of those to be doable immediately, but would be cool if they are. :)
    Thanks for the update Geti!
     
  19. thebonesauce

    thebonesauce All life begins and ends with Nu Staff Alumni
    1. MOLEing Over Large Estates - [MOLE]
    2. The Ivory Tower of Grammar-Nazis

    Messages:
    2,554
    The funniest part? I actually had an idea for something similar once scripting is released. I'm making it start you (and possibly a team) on the shore of an island, and there will be huge maps that you can explore. Certain points of each map will link to another map, allowing for huge labyrinths and an end goal of collecting treasures in certain portions of the dungeon. Highlights will include random mobs you'll have to fight, bosses guarding each treasure, an end boss, possibly items that can be equipped that will increase damage/health/etc, possibly skills if you can fuck with keybindings. It's gonna be good fun!
     
    splittingred likes this.
  20. Reactorcore

    Reactorcore Shark Slayer

    Messages:
    155
    So in summary, creating objects and characters is stable, but messing the world or metagame logic is likely to be unstable.

    In essence, this is the same situation as Cortex Command was and is still in. You can create new objects or groups of them to your hearts content, but giving them context to use in for gameplay and tie all the created content together into a coherent experience... yeah, good luck with that. Not so fond about that, to be honest. Its not a modding platfom I'd personally settle for.

    Back then, I created the AAL faction and all the other similar item/actor things with the hopes that Cortex Command would tie them and all other user created objects together somehow in the future in a consistent and persistent manner, but unfortunately the game was never designed for that to begin with. I had no idea of this since I was also inexperienced with content and game design to begin with back then.

    This left all the created mods and other content inconsistent and unstandardized to begin with, meaning the mechanics of all the created content was at the mercy of the modder's own judgement and emotions, which meant that a consistent game experience was as good as impossible if you used content from two different modders or even content of one modder versus the original vanilla content.

    For KAG, I was thinking about creating an entire consistent game experienced that was designed from scratch, starting from the way the environment works, what tiles the world has and how they behave, working all the way to entities and their interaction, and finally, defining the game logic based on the previous components.

    But a modding system like this won't be able to support something like that I'm afraid. I could try to hack that in, but that will mean a whole load of pain trying to adapt to new changes within the engine simply because the world system and the game logic system is not as robust as the blob-entity system.

    I don't know man. I'll still take a look at modding system anyway and perhaps modify the zombie fortress experience to some extent, but my original plans are probably going down the bin, along with any serious modding effort I would have put in. I will look into the system before I set those words in stone, but thats how I feel right now with the progress I've seen so far.