90 replies to this topic

[AnnabelleRose]

I like Ascension64's posts.

It would seem that he actually reads and considers both sides on this.

Too many seem to simply be waiting for the other side to post something, so they can produce another long winded retort.

As for me using IEGMC, and The Wizard being on an extended break?

It could happen, that is why I always check the mod webpage (or forum) for mods that still have them before I do a new install.

If you check my forum at TeamBG, you will see that Alex Macintosh has been updated to v3 there, and has been uploaded to IEGMC waiting to be updated there.

It helps that The Wizard is such a nice guy and offered to host my mods before anyone else.

[bigcat]

Sorry if I'm necroposting, but I just wanted to make a clarification.

Wrye was upset that someone removed a mod that he referenced in LGNPC Seyda Neen. He was never censored for his work on the mod. I bring this up because I wrote the original LGNPC Seyda Neen, which was the first LGNPC project and 'inspired' the other LGNPC mods. Therefore it would be logical to assume that I was the censorer when in fact I am a strong proponent of the 'Bazaar' view of modding. I'm grateful that Wrye improved my mod, and he did, and I'm grateful that after I dropped the ball on LGNPC others took over and created an amazing set of mods.
I believe that mods are gifts to the community of that particular game and should not be considered to be held in copy write nor should anyone charge for them. After all a mod is by definition a derivative work since it is changing an already published game and it is only through the graciousness of the game's copy write owner that we are allowed to change the game in the first place. In my opinion it would be like claiming copy write on fan fiction.
In my case, the 'Bazaar' system of modding was wonderful. I created a little mod in a couple of days and then wandered off to try other things. Normally this would have doomed my mod to obscurity, but some nice chap wanted more less generic NPCs, revived the project and, with a dedicated team, created lots of mods. Instead of dying away my little mod lived on as part of this now famous project until Wrye noticed it needed a facelift. He reworked it to stand as a durn solid part of the LGNPC family, but I'm biased of course.
I could have come out yelling when I saw the LGNPC project was being resurrected without my consent, but what purpose would it have served. For the record I did make a slightly snide comment on the new project's message boards about making sure the new mods had depth as well as width, but generally I wasn't too grumpy. If I had screamed about my rights, the Morrowind community might have lost a great set of mods and it would have been my fault. I would have been the villain. Instead I get the pleasure of knowing that my little mod and all the other LGNPC mods have given joy to lots of people. On the other hand the 'Cathedral' view of modding benefits only one person, the author, to the detriment of all the folks who play the game. It hardly seems worth it to me. Let folks enjoy your mod no matter how it gets to them.
One last note in this diatribe, Wrye and the LGNPC folks gave me attribution beyond the call of duty and I appreciate that. Please if you do use someone's mod as part of a larger mod or in some other way give them credit where it is due.
Cheers and keep modding. I love you alls work.

Joe Stevens

Thanks to the bigg in the post below for pointing out that I was using the wrong terminology, calling 'cathedral' 'parlor' and 'bazaar' 'cathedral'. I modified this post using the correct terms to hopefully make it easier to read which is why the bigg's post now makes less sense, but hopefully he forgives me.

Edited by bigcat, 20 February 2008 - 12:22 PM.

[the bigg]

In my case, the 'cathedral' system of modding was wonderful.

Just FYI, 'Cathedral' is the opposite of what you mean (it refers to "all rights reserved, you can't touch my mod"), whereas "you can pick up my mod and improve it if you want" is called Bazaar.
http://catb.org/~esr...thedral-bazaar/

[bigcat]

In my case, the 'cathedral' system of modding was wonderful.

Just FYI, 'Cathedral' is the opposite of what you mean (it refers to "all rights reserved, you can't touch my mod"), whereas "you can pick up my mod and improve it if you want" is called Bazaar.
http://catb.org/~esr...thedral-bazaar/

Whoops thanks. My reference was parlor versus cathedral, with cathedral being the broader view. So I'm coming out in favor of Bazaar, which fits me well I've been called bizarre often enough!

[cmorgan]

Off topic --- Great work on the mod, bigcat - LGNPC (I have only played parts of the post-Wrye update) plugins are absolutely top notch additions to the game world. I just started Morrowind, and have had to stop until my machine upgrade, because I was getting very low framerates, and I absolutely refuse to uninstall any of it. A seriously fine example of what many good people can do working together, even if the "working together" ocurrs over the course of years and some of the project folks never actually work on the project at the same time.

Sorry for the OT; just nice to see someone who walks the walk and talks the talk

Edited by cmorgan, 20 February 2008 - 02:34 PM.

[Paulos Kodon]

Okay, I'm new to this whole thing, but have begun my own project of trying to find/install as many mods without conflict as I can.

In my case, since I've read that there are balancing issues with TUTU and BGT in Baldur's Gate II, I decided that I wanted to collect and install mods only for BG1 + TotSC. Since many mods may or may not work together, and I've not played the game through once yet, I don't know what will work and what will break. I'm trusting to an examination of which files come with which mods and watching for files with the same name to keep me from installing stuff that will cause a conflict. Sometimes this means looking at an exe file with a HEX editor in order to figgure out what files are in an executable self-installing package.

Now, I can understand that modders would like only their latest version out there. I also understand the frustration that could be caused to a gamer who just wants to play their game with everything they can get their hands on - who no longer can because one of the mods that just got updated now breaks the megamod. I realise that modding is not like building a Linux system, but those who do the megamods are not unlike the "companies" that build particular distributions of Linux, which are all made up of both content by thousands of outside contributors, as well as their own content.

I guess as a gamer, and a person who enjoys modifying his own games (I just haven't found the tools yet for modding IE games, beyond a few tools for editing saved games and saved characters), I see both problems and needs in the modding community:

Forgive me if some or all of this has been said before.

Problems (in relation to megamods in general):

1. Making sure everything works together: It takes a tremendous amount of time and effort on the part of a megamod creator to make sure that all mods included in the megamod will work together.

2. If the mods included in the megamod are not final versions (which will never again be updated) stored in a central repository, and the only thing the player has to go by to build the megamod is a list of links (any of which could be broken any given day), then the megamod will never be "stable", especially if the modders themselves refuse to be involved.

3. Some sort of package manager that would go get the latest package might be nice, assuming that the modders themselves are willing to be involved in the process. Without their at least supporting the project, how is the package manager to know whether some new change in the latest version breaks something else down the line. At least some of the modders who have complained would seem to also have no interest in, or time to spare toward, making sure that any other mod that depends on theirs is not broken by their next update.

4. There would seem to be little or no incentive for the creators of any particular mod to be included in any particular megamod. It's not like a Linux distro where contributors expect to have their work included in such a distribution. And the audience for any game mod is orders of magnitude less than even the least-popular Linux distro.

5. Unlike Linux distros, there is no set of standards for starting a megamod, setting up a repository for contributing mods to, no standard for mod packages that everyone adheres to within the distribution, no package manager, and no set protocol for communications between megamod creators/managers and contributing mod creators/managers.

It would be nice to make it as easy as possible for the player to install a particular package, and it would be nice if people creating mods and megamods could all co-operate.

Much as I might love to have one great big megamod that includes as many mods as one can get to work together, and fuses the whole of Baldur's Gate into one huge, nearly endless game, I have to say that until the issues above are resolved (with co-operation from all parties involved), it won't happen, at least not to the satisfaction of all parties, and that includes the game players.

I do agree that it can be frustrating for the player to hunt down compatible mods and install them, especially with many older mods out there, and not knowing the order in which to install them; but, in all fairness to the modders, a megamod MUST include only material they have permission to include (even if they are only providing links to outside sources, and don't provide pre-packaged mod sets).

I wish the modders themselves would take interest in megamod projects, and approach the megamod creators themselves to have their mods included, but this is not a perfect world, and megamod projects themselves probably don't get announced before hand to invite contributors to contact them, either. The fault lies not only in the creators of the mods and megamods, but also in the haphazard distribution of some of the mods that might be useful in a megamod.

Is there hope? Well, there is if the people who make the individual mods and other content will take a co-operative stance to contributing to a community effort, and the megamodders will take it upon themselves to use common curtesy in approaching the creators of the individual mods BEFORE inclusion (whether by link or by packaging). That way, the individual modders, who may or may not even know the megamod exists, will both be aware of which version of their mod is known to be stable with the megamod, and can be assured of some sort of feedback if a change they made to their mod has now broken something in the megamod.

Actually, I would suggest that ANYONE who makes a mod that depends on someone else's mod contact the creator of the first mod and at least let them know their intentions, otherewise there is no possibility of two-way feedback if something is changed in the first mod that breaks the second mod.

Would that we could all learn to co-operate.

Too much said,
PK

[DavidWallace]

I don't think cooperation or lack thereof is particularly the issue. It's possible to code in such a way as to reduce compatibility problems to a minimum, but it's difficult, and wasn't really possible at all when many earlier mods were installed. And other than coding that way, there's relatively little you can do even with cooperation because the number of possible mod permutations is unfathomably huge.

One response to the second point might be: that's why everything should be combined into one megamod. But that removes the ability to choose which mods you do or don't want. Both for reasons of quality control and reasons of personal taste, there's a need to keep that ability.

Actually, I'd guess that if you picked any random couple of dozen mods hosted on one of the main sites and updated in the last couple of years, and then installed them in a sensible (fixes-quests-npcs-tweaks) order, you'd get a pretty stable install. The problems come when you try to include older, less-friendly mods.

[Paulos Kodon]

Okay, I guess I'll shove my foot in my mouth a little deeper...

I think that the crux of all of this is: though a "Master Mega Mod" that includes every mod ever concieved that doesn't conflict with each other, in the best possible combination, sounds nice, it's not practical because of the considerations mentioned from all sides.

The best thing that can be done is for those who can, to re-create or modify the older mods (with the creator's prior permission) to work nicely with the new ones (assuming there is no newer mod to replace it), and make those part of one of the major repositories; then create your list of links to files, in the order in which they should be installed to best advantage, and post that (after extensive testing to make sure everything plays well together).

Again, an effort should be made on the part of the creators of any endangered mods (mods they will no longer be able to support, or they can no longer afford to keep a repository of themselves) that are part of a megamod, to preserve them by asking that they be included in one of these repositories.

Also, those making the megamod could, and probably should, approach the creators of any obscure mods they consider provide worthwhile contributions to the megamod, and ask them to support the project by allowing a copy of their latest version to be placed on one or more of the major repositories.

I'm sure that the players will appreciate ANY and ALL support the creators of both the contributing mods and the megamods might give to making the process of re-creating the megamod as painless (in reduced number of downloads, automation of the process, complete documentation of what each package adds to the project and why it's included) as possible.

This is the type of co-operation I'm talking about.

I'd venture to guess that very few modders, even if using methods that allow their mods to "play nicely" with other mods, really expect to have their mod become part of such a megamod as the Big World Project, especially if the BWP is quite recent. Many of them probably have never even heard or thought of such an all-inclusive megamod.

I do agree that the user, even if a way could be agreed upon for automating the collecting and installing of the various mods that make up the megamod, still needs to be able to control which parts of the megamod they wish to install, based upon the descriptions. (If I'm going to be playing a neutral-good character, then I probably would not want to include evil PCs or party NPCs (are they really NPCs if they join your party?) or quests that might require my Paladin to steal something without being caught (assuming that your reputation only goes down if someone sees you do the evil deed and reports it to the guards - or you perform the evil deed in plain sight of a guard).

So, the well-documented manual installation instructions with links to the latest version of the files to be included, seems like the best solution all around, short of a real automatic installer that could optionally go get the files, and check the various locations for updates.

Another long-winded response, for which I again apologize. I'll go back to my search for BG1-only, TotSC-/DSotSC-compatible mods now...

PK

[Ascension64]

I think that's how BWP works at the moment, Paulos, to settle on a mega-modification install that is standardised and works (to the best of whoever has all the time in the world to test it). Permission would not be required per se so long as patches and whatnot aren't being built on existing mods, or the mods aren't being modified themselves. A mega-mod is just a bunch of mods, not a modification in itself.

But I think the fact that a 'stable' mega-modification is so impossible (if impossibility can be measured) has contributions from the smorgasboard of coding techniques, the variety of different types of mods, mods being constantly updated, and frankly, an antique game that wasn't overtly intended for modding.

I certainly don't think collaboration is missing, but more the immensity and skill required in coding with a compatibility framework in the context of pursuing a hobby that complicates matters. And nobody has whined without good reason.

One 'simpler' solution, but still by no means simple, is to do to a mega-mod with mods as military computers with personal computers - the mega-mod is based on stable enough modifications tested to work without considering the need to upgrade. The task is still huge.

[Leomar]

I think that's how BWP works at the moment, Paulos, to settle on a mega-modification install that is standardised and works (to the best of whoever has all the time in the world to test it).

That is right, we try to get all mods compatible together. And yes, this is not an easy task. But not really to create a "master mega mod", because of this:

One response to the second point might be: that's why everything should be combined into one megamod. But that removes the ability to choose which mods you do or don't want. Both for reasons of quality control and reasons of personal taste, there's a need to keep that ability.

David is right here, there exist not much gamers, who wants all mods in one megamod together. We try to build a compatible one, where you get the ability to choose all or which mods you want and we try to show you, where the best place is, to install them in the installationorder. The most gamers want an own created megamod and need the help to do it without conflicts. Therefore our project is, to help the gamers in this case.

Sounds like a bunch of modders with over inflated egos whining ITT.

That is not nice, what you say, because all try theire best. David is here right too, because it is to much to handle all the mods for this reason in our freetime. It needs time and help from each other. Before you come in and call us egos, come in and help us. That would be much nicer.

Greetings Leomar

Edited by Leomar, 15 February 2009 - 08:07 PM.