I really like the strategy of Cataclysm2: http://whalesdev.tumblr.com/post/75874322855/new-scheme-for-submissions
Perhaps we could steal that? We already have a mod-manager that could fulfil this functionality.
Just piping in to say, multiple items having near similar stats cannot be used as a reason why the game is harder to balance. Also unnecessary and not adding anything are no reason to ignore or not include json edited files in the main. Just because one person, or even lots of people, puts in a lot “item content” doesn’t mean it takes away time or resources from someone adding behind the scenes additions of new functionality.
[quote=“Uneron, post:21, topic:4993”]I really like the strategy of Cataclysm2: http://whalesdev.tumblr.com/post/75874322855/new-scheme-for-submissions
Perhaps we could steal that? We already have a mod-manager that could fulfil this functionality.[/quote]
This works because Whales seems to have come up with a very coherent vision of what Cata2 is supposed to look like. As I’ve said a million and one times, the problem with DDA is that there is no coherent vision/design document of what CataDDA is supposed to be - because of this, pretty much anything goes.Also, relegating anyone’s submission into the ‘crazy’ category (which is basically a ‘this doesn’t work for the game’ category) would probably cause a lot of upset for most people at this stage and so I think it’s better to just have a much more structured approach.
What a lot of community games do is have a list of things that need working on/content that needs adding. This would be really useful, and would give potential contributors ideas of sure fire ways to get content in.
Deadmerits: I don’t really understand. Of course it’s difficult to balance if you’ve got more stuff in. Imagining balancing 10 guns compared to 50?!
Of course it doesn’t take time away from others (other than lots of reviewing) but it does make it look a mess. The fact that Whales is promoting his game as ‘not as messy as DDA’ is a pretty strong indicator.
My point with the balancing was items with similar stats. By definition the similar stats means it would be easier to balance. 10 guns compared to 50 in the sense I’m hearing we still have 10 guns just 40 with different names. (Meaning same stats)
As far as the item content being “messy” I can’t remark on as I haven’t coded anything ever and meant my comments more to be based on the time and effort of the devs working on new functions/features. Didn’t think of the time taken for reviewing and testing though.
This. There’s only so much you can do in json, and frankly, it’s almost never interesting. If there’s actual compiled code to introduce novel behavior to these new guns/items/whatever, that’s a different thing. But changing a few numbers around because you felt the “overpowered weapons niche” wasn’t fully exploited? -_-
[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:16, topic:4993”]1. The distinction between content and “Actual” code is meaningless, they’re both important. I’d KILL to have acacia come back and make some new buildings. If anything, I’d say that we’re still content-poor.
2. in order to understand the game well enough to balance things, you have to interact with the game and its systems. If we restricted how people are allowed to contribute to the degree you’re suggesting, we wouldn’t magically get the changes you want, we’d just get no changes at all.
3. You still haven’t made ANY case for the large variety of items the game has being a bad thing.[/quote]
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I don’t agree the distinction is meaningless, and I don’t think that example is representative of the problem. Designing maps takes quite a bit more work and vision than firing up notepad and adding “Level 7 Gun” because there was a gap between “Level 6 Gun” and “Level 8 Gun.”
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While it’s true that “censoring” new mods would likely have stifled modding, I don’t think the alternative of basically accepting anything is a better model. It may in fact have the same (or worse) effect even. People may decide that coding new mods that actually introduce new behavior/logic isn’t worthwhile because the standards are so low. Imagine if all the mods on Skyrim Nexus were integrated into the base game. Ask yourself if all the wonderful modders would have bothered if the game got filled up with worthless savegames, ENB profiles, and cheating batch files. Sure, you could argue that you don’t care, and that anyone who does care and stopped modding because of it wasn’t passionate enough about the game anyway. That’s a perfectly valid personal opinion. But is it a good one to base game design around?
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In itself, it’s probably not something that can be objectively bad. But it seems to be an opinion that a lot of people, or at least a vocal minority, have. It also makes things more difficult to balance. While that’s something on the level of correlation rather than causation, bad balance is something that is objectively bad regardless of the cause. When “Johnson” decides that his “Johnson Gun” should be 100 times more powerful than any other gun because of its super advanced, super rare “Johnson Tech,” where do we draw the line? Does the merit of the “Johnson Gun” outweigh the demerit of people perceiving that the only reason he added it was to get the name “Johnson” in the game? And you’ll probably retort, “Why do I care what people think?” I don’t know, some of those people might have something to contribute, more than a gun branded in their own name. Maybe not though. I know which side I’d gamble on though.
I’ll stop now since this analogy is getting thinner and thinner and I wasn’t intending to offend anyone, just make a point.
What happens when these stats are not so near? Who decides that? Obviously the player is the one who decides it, he’s the one who decides that if the “Johnson Gun” is so much better than anything else, why bother with anything else. Granted not everyone is a power-gamer, but I would argue that most people are to some degree, at least to the degree that it doesn’t cut into their enjoyment. While that differs based on the player, most people play to win since losing is rarely fun (unless you’re talking about Dwarf Fortress, so I hear), and it’s only after winning is no longer a challenge that they play for something else.
In closing, I’d suggest a poll to determine whether players think pure json additions that are functionally identical (i.e. copy-pasted something in json and changed a few numbers) to current items constitute bloat. A lot of people seem to think so, but maybe that’s just the vocal minority, and maybe this whole argument is moot because all concerned would be better off if the 5 of us just played something else.
The problem is that most (if not all) rpg/rl/anything games go by the idea that each item you pick up is functionally different. Granted, in some games they just look/move different or have a different aesthetic (demon sword/angel sword or whatever) but in a ASCII game its expected that each item be functionally different from others. Having two items which are pretty much exactly the same other than description (or maybe something meaninglessly small) is really confusing for players and looks shoddy.
Basically, all I’m saying here is that we’ve got TONS of content and some sort of soft lock wouldn’t be a bad idea. As I’ve heard someone say a while back (I can’t remember who, it was a long time ago) this will annoy many people who treat CataDDA as a dumping ground for items they wish were in a game - but I don’t think that’s something we should worry about. DDA is getting a reputation (the whales blog proves this) for having bloat and that’s not a good thing at all.
As Kevin says, concrete examples might help, so I’d suggest we do that.
Self-bow/short-bow as one example.
Edit: Thanks ejesto for putting it so well. I couldn’t agree more with everything you’ve said. I do think it’d be difficult to stop pure Json additions as some may well be useful, it’s just that there’s way too much leniency in what’s allowed and where the boundaries are. Adding some rules about what can and can’t be added and a few more guidelines would help no end in content, then we could say for instance ‘no items which draw directly off other source material (helsing gun for instance)’ or whatever it may be.
Honestly, we could probably remove the short bow, it has no relevant real world counterpart. I left it in there mostly because it was already there, but to say the self bow and the short bow are the same shows that you’re just fishing for reasons to complain, since their stats are widely different.
As for comparing DDA to Cata2… Don’t, remember, we’re working off of the original code Whales developed. If he’s gained a lot of experience and has managed to discover that writing reusable code is a blessing, good on him, but the fact that he (publicly) talks down about DDA is more an indicator of the kind of person he is rather than how well he codes.
As Kevin mentioned, the idea that moving definitions to json broke lots of things is inaccurate and disingenuous. The fact that this data was ever hard coded is horrible. It meant that any minor adjustment required a full rebuild of the application. Pulling the definitions out made the entire system far more flexible. It also meant that people with no real coding experience could jump in and contribute.
Well DDA is still based to the largest part on his former project. I think he of all people has the right to criticise what road that project is taking. It is not any different from an author that is unhappy with a movie adaptation.
I fully agree with you there: the json was awesome. Hard coding data was a terrible idea indeed.
I’d say it means he has integrity and courage. They’re valid criticisms, and even if it’s just his opinion, it’s one he’s not alone in. People are way too sensitive. He’s supposed to censor his own opinion that is relevant because a) DDA builds on his own work (and a lot of his criticisms are actually directed at his OWN poor design decisions) and b) he’s stating that he doesn’t intend to make the same mistakes (even if that is just an opinion)? I applaud him for not being afraid to tell it how it sees it. Nobody else is afraid to speak their mind, why should he be? Just because it looks like he’s firing the first shots? People aren’t allowed to have opinions that might offend others (unless of course they shot first, in which case it’s perfectly acceptable, morally required, and THE AMERICAN WAY)?
He’s not criticizing his prior work, he’s criticizing the work that’s been done since. Specifically, what the DDA team has done.
As long as items spawn at a roughly realistic rate and we aren’t inundated with a stupid amount of perfectly good gear lying around in every corner and ever dresser, I don’t see what the problem with a wide variety of items is. It does not detriment the game as far as I can tell. Kevin seems to agree, so I doubt there’s a software side detriment.
The real world is full of stuff.
I would love to see more variety in locations that would make for good places to spawn some of the less ‘local’ items, like perhaps a rare ‘dojo’ building that has martial arts gear, or a costume store (a theater with a costume room might be more interesting) that has some of the weirder wearable items. I don’t think that non-local items should be entirely restricted to their own special stores, but it would certainly make it a little easier to reduce generic spawning of those items with less overall impact to the people who want to use them.
Personally I like to make weird characters. I had a schizophrenic cannibal who wore a top-hat and a gasmask with a trench coat and a skirt over a pair of jeans. He fought with a longsword. He was badass and did surprisingly well despite never managing his psychotic episodes.
There’s room for weird shit in zombie fiction. There is no bloat until someone can demonstrate that the variety of items is causing problems. I am happy to discuss the balance of items, and I am happy to discuss the spawn rate of items. But removing them doesn’t actually accomplish anything. It does not improve the game in any noticeable way that couldn’t be more elegantly handled with adjustments rather than removal.
Like I said, the world is full of stuff. We’re kind of lucky in that we are playing a game built with a format where lots of stuff can be put into the game.
As for too many similar items, if two items are identical in every way save for Name: Description, and have identical stats, that might be a tad excessive, but again it doesn’t detriment the game. It doesn’t really impact anything apart from the name of the item. You either come across/make one or the other.
I can see bloat being an issue in crafting menus, as those can get quite long and difficult to manage with too many identical items. But that might be better handled with an overhaul of the crafting UI. Though right now it’s being decently managed with recipes being locked to books.
That’s an incredibly elitist attitude to bring to the table. Several of our main contributors have learned C++ over the course of working on the game, and telling people that their contributions aren’t wanted because they haven’t taken Computer Science III and their contributions don’t require a recompile is exactly the sort of thing that makes new people not want to contribute to the project.
This has never been the policy of the development team. Submit total crap, and we’ll shoot your PR down. If your crap could be improved with some more work and made into something that’s actually good, and we’ll try our best to help you do so. But we never just ‘accept anything’.
Yay! A poorly-veiled insult aimed at me! I could respond with snark and sarcasm, but I think I’ll rely on facts here:
Regarding your example (let’s be honest here, you’re talking about the caseless Rivtech guns) - all pre-cataclysm firearms in the game have a manufacturer. I think this is to make the gun-nuts happy, since there’d be no real functional difference if we renamed the M4 as ‘assault rifle’ and kept all of the rest of its data the same. But people like verisimilitude in their games, and for a lot of folks that means stuff like the little details about who made their weapon and such. So when I added in caseless weapons I decided to give them a brand name. I didn’t do so ‘to get my name in the game’ (check the credits screen - I’m there) but rather because all the other guns have a brand name, and I went with Rivtech because I’m not terribly creative with names. As for being ‘100 times better’ than everything else, if you actually try the caseless weapons out, you’ll find that’s not the case (as I said previously, crap doesn’t get merged).
While not offended, I did have a good laugh after reading it.
I don’t see a functional difference between the magic sword +5 and the magic sword +6 items that make up the bulk of most other roguelikes. An extra point of damage is meaninglessly small by this criteria.
[quote=“macrosblackd, post:27, topic:4993”]Honestly, we could probably remove the short bow, it has no relevant real world counterpart. I left it in there mostly because it was already there, but to say the self bow and the short bow are the same shows that you’re just fishing for reasons to complain, since their stats are widely different.
As for comparing DDA to Cata2… Don’t, remember, we’re working off of the original code Whales developed. If he’s gained a lot of experience and has managed to discover that writing reusable code is a blessing, good on him, but the fact that he (publicly) talks down about DDA is more an indicator of the kind of person he is rather than how well he codes.
As Kevin mentioned, the idea that moving definitions to json broke lots of things is inaccurate and disingenuous. The fact that this data was ever hard coded is horrible. It meant that any minor adjustment required a full rebuild of the application. Pulling the definitions out made the entire system far more flexible. It also meant that people with no real coding experience could jump in and contribute.[/quote]
I couldn’t agree with this more.
Folks tend to invest something of themselves into their creative projects, plus telling someone ‘you make crap and you shouldn’t be allowed to make stuff’ in as many words is a good way to strike a sensitive chord with anybody.
You don’t really understand what the phrase ‘the American way’ means, okay I get it that you hate the United States. This is (I think?) a discussion about game design (and why people should or should not be allowed to participate?) not insults and chest-beating. Dragging some sort of nationalistic baggage into this is silly and irrelevant. Please don’t.
This is true. He seems to make an effort to take some sort of jab at the C:DDA project in pretty much everything he posts online these days, meanwhile my level of respect for him has dropped further each time.
[quote=“Hyena Grin, post:31, topic:4993”]…
The real world is full of stuff.
…[/quote]
slow clap
This entire post right here. I couldn’t possibly agree with this post any more.
In my opinion the amount of content is not a bad thing itself (aside from the inherent difficulties of handling so much stuff of course), in fact it is one of DDA’s strengths.
The issues stems from how it is handled and where limits are set, which has been now prioritized.
So yeah, some content that was a bit too “wacky” did get in, but the work on content packaging will mercilessly curb stomp that.
Also realistic guns is always a good thing.
It’s the reason that C:DDA was originally created.
Remember folks: C:DDA began as TheDarklingWolf’s modification to the original Cataclysm, a modification whose original purpose was to expand the game and add new content.
He’s done both. He’s been extremely self-critical about his own code. You know, the code that everyone then turns around and criticizes as the reason we still don’t have proper z-levels and whatnot. Everyone blames the previous codebase as the reason we can’t have nice things, him included apparently. Also, I don’t believe he’s criticized the work that’s been done on DDA. At least, not by my definition of “work.” To me, it seems he’s criticizing the decision to allow anyone with a rudimentary mastery notepad to put whatever they want in the core game with almost no oversight. I read all his blog posts and I can’t find a single critical statement that doesn’t either deal with that issue, or isn’t directed squarely at himself. But maybe I’m just reading what I want to. There seems to be a lot of that going around.
I don’t think it’s elitist to expect that a modification that becomes a part of the BASE GAME require something “special” other than changing a few numbers in a json file. Remember that the whole point of putting things in json was to make MODDING easier. Well, what does that word even mean when it all goes into the base game? And if you’ve learned c++, then I applaud you. That doesn’t change the fact that mods consisting purely of copy-paste-number-change json edits have almost no value (and if you’re cynical, negative value). Do you think anyone would even notice if “Level 7 Gun” wasn’t in the game, when all it does is fill a number gap between 6 and 8?
And for someone who continually claims not to be offended (though I am doing my best to be objective and non-judgemental), you very quickly jump in everytime it’s even remotely implied your work is the subject of criticism (not this time, I admit this is well past the threshold of implication). You say you didn’t do it to get your name in the game. That is what it will appear like to others though. And the fact that these new guns don’t really do anything different or special only reinforces that perception.
Gee, maybe the difference is that magic sword +6 is often generated procedurally, i.e. the engine can just fill in the blanks. You don’t need a person to come in and put that 6 there, nor do you need them to come in and put that 6 there and then name it after themselves. Let me reiterate: if a computer program can automagically create an item identical to your item, your item has no value. And if it can’t, purely because the program wasn’t designed to procedurally generate items, that doesn’t suddenly make your item very valuable.
And you don’t really understand what cynical sarcasm is. But I like how I’m now some America hater. I like how you drew that conclusion from one snide remark. For someone who didn’t take offense to what I said, you sure do your best to make it look that way. Protip: the proper way to respond to something you don’t think is relevant is NOT TO. Don’t worry, you won’t hurt my feelings, it was a meaningless sarcastic remark and I wasn’t expecting a response.
I’m sure he’ll lose a lot of sleep over that. But I was under the impression this was a discussion on game design, not a “Do you respect Whales?” thread.
Opinions are individual things. I’m fairly certain that our contributors consider what they’re doing ‘work’ since what they do doesn’t just appear out of thing air, but rather somebody has to put the time and effort into making it all happen.
Again, opinion. Remember that C:DDA is, in itself, a modification of the base Cataclysm game. Everything in it that’s not from the original code is a ‘mod’ by definition. Belittling others’ work because it’s not up to your particular standard of participation doesn’t (in my opinion) come off as any less elitist.
Everything about this is subjective and judgemental. The entire purpose of this thread (and the original discussion that preceded it) is to isolate a bunch of complaints about the game from an otherwise unrelated discussion. By participating in the first place you are judging, and opinions are always subjective.
As for ‘you very quickly jump in everytime it’s even remotely implied your work is the subject of criticism’, I’m not sure where you’re getting that. I post on the forums a lot, and make a lot of clarifications and answer a lot of questions. Maybe I’ve come off as ‘jumping into’ discussions, but I wasn’t aware that this was a NO-RIVET thread. If you’re going to attempt to insult someone, expect that they just might respond.
We have no procedural generation system for items, and even if we did this wouldn’t be a valid statement. Different ammunition, totally different statistics, different required skill, different accessory slots; that’s all that makes any guns in C:DDA different.
You really should have expected one. Again, insult somebody (or something they hold close to their heart like their motherland) and you’ll probably get a response. Some of us haven’t been sufficiently trained by society to accept insults with a smile and nary a complaint.
It’s not, and I’m sure he really doesn’t care. If he cared about what we thought he wouldn’t have said those things in the first place.
[quote=“Rivet, post:36, topic:4993”]Everything about this is subjective and judgemental. The entire purpose of this thread (and the original discussion that preceded it) is to isolate a bunch of complaints about the game from an otherwise unrelated discussion. By participating in the first place you are judging, and opinions are always subjective.
You really should have expected one. Again, insult somebody (or something they hold close to their heart like their motherland) and you’ll probably get a response. Some of us haven’t been sufficiently trained by society to accept insults with a smile and nary a complaint.[/quote]
When I say I’m doing my best to be non-judgemental, I mean that I’m not criticizing you (or trying not to, at least) as a person. I don’t think Rivtech and other similar “copy-paste” mods have value, but that’s not a personal attack on you. I am aware you’ve been learning C++, and I’m sure you’ve done things I would consider to have value since I stopped paying attention to the game (at least I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt). Doesn’t change the fact that I, and at least a few others including Whales, consider your earlier work, and similar work by others, to not have real value. That’s not a personal attack. I understand that we all learn to ride a bicycle by starting with training wheels. The problem is when stuff that is basically “procedurally generated by humans” gets into the base game in quantities so large that you can’t even count them all. Those training wheels don’t have any value beyond assisting in learning to ride and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise.
And when I said I didn’t expect a response, it was because I was aware the statement had no real value. It was a snide, joking remark, not a serious one. But thanks for proving my point that you take offense to all of this. You might want to get your shoulder looked at. There’s a chip on it.
Uh, too heated a debate for my taste (Come on people, lets discuss the issue at hand only). Nevertheless:
On the paper perhaps, but when it comes down to the actual game it makes little difference. The only thing one really has to care about is the ammunition type and the gun type (rifle, pistol), everything else is hardly noticeable. Additionally, as someone who can barely discern one end of a gun from the other, every new gun addition with minuscule differences actively hurts the amount of fun I have from the game to the point that I only ever bother with bows, melee or special weapons (lasers) these days.
Oh, I’m certainly trying to. But when other people take offense so easily, what can I do? I can’t even criticize facets of the game without people getting offended, even when I’m doing my best to criticize in an objective, inoffensive way. I’ve made no judgements about the character of the authors of the features I’ve criticized, short of a snide remark about “The American Way,” and honestly, that was a fairly ambiguous statement. In the process I’ve been told I hate America, which I don’t think is true at all (maybe I hate Americans, but I’m a cynic, I hate everyone in general, and I think I hate them less than I hate most other peoples). You could see my remark as flattering to America if you weren’t looking for insults. Being good to your neighbors and harsh to those that attack you (that’s personally what I was implying), that’s certainly a fair and honorable way to conduct yourself. But it’s a bit intellectually dishonest to instantly brand anyone who doesn’t agree with you as your enemy also, especially in a country that values free speech as the highest of liberties. The wise recognize the value of dissenting opinions.
Please don’t insult me and then tell me that you’re not insulting me. You’ve even said that you are, yourself.
It’s indefensible to attack someone and then blame them for reacting. Statements like ‘your contributions have no real value’ are attacks.
There’s a definite chip on my shoulder when it comes to people insulting myself and the entire project as a whole. Perhaps you’re used to folks accepting verbal vitriol with a smile, but I am not one of those people.
Ignoring repeated insults != valuing dissenting opinions.
By all means, go on with your discussion; but please don’t think that you can talk down to people and they will universally accept it without complaint.