The future of modding...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Smackrazor
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Smackrazor

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This is only slightly related to modding and I feel this is the better place for it.

Anyway, I'm pondering about closing PIPBoy 2000 LE down for good because the Phoenix engine for Tactics isn't very moddable and Fallout 1 and 2 are very old. If someone wants to give me further reasons why it should be shut down or some arguments against shutting is down that would be much appreciated.
 
I love the fishes cuz they're so delicious. I'm sorry if you feel differently, but that's just my opinion.
 
Depends...

What are you going to do when Arcanum comes out? Most of this site will have Arcanum parts to it so why not a modding section too? Arcanum shipps with their Campaign editor, which I'm sure will have to do with modding. I Vote for keeping PIPBoy2000 LE around, if nothing else, maybe you guys could give us a Fallout 3 out of the old Fallout engines shell... ;)

True Raven
Annunaki FanFic and Theory Guild
Coming soon to a Vault near you!
 
RE: Depends...

>What are you going to do
>when Arcanum comes out? Most
>of this site will have
>Arcanum parts to it so
>why not a modding section
>too? Arcanum shipps with their
>Campaign editor, which I'm sure
>will have to do with
>modding. I Vote for keeping
>PIPBoy2000 LE around, if nothing
>else, maybe you guys could
>give us a Fallout 3
>out of the old Fallout
>engines shell... ;)

Well, see that is possible but making a full TC for Fallout 2 requires a good map editor, better art and script editors and above all a huge staff. Since we have none of these it's not really gonna happen. Unless of course we get about 5 artists who are good with a 3d modeller and some decent programmers. (Right now I'm the only TMS member who is really active).
 
RE: Depends...

If I felt I could program better than the average man I would offer my services but my skills are limited to Basic, VB, a minute amount of C++ and HTML so I don't think I'd be much help.

>>Well, see that is possible but making a full TC for Fallout 2 requires a good map editor, better art and script editors and above all a huge staff. Since we have none of these it's not really gonna happen. Unless of course we get about 5 artists who are good with a 3d modeller and some decent programmers. (Right now I'm the only TMS member who is really active).<<

I was kinda joking about all that. I understand quite a bit about the production of games because I aspire to become a Game Designer sometime in the future. I was serious, however, about the Arcanum bit. What if PIPBoy 2000LE could become something in the Arcanum world? Modding is a wonderful hobby and I'd hate to see that stricken from NMA.

True Raven
Annunaki FanFic and Theory Guild
Coming soon to a Vault near you!
 
Problems with Fallout/Fallout 2

Chris Taylor said there'd be one huge problem with making any type of mod to Fallout or Fallout 2. The exit grid locations are hardcoded in to the engine themselves. Without the source code, you really can't get around that.
 
[font size=1" color="#FF0000]LAST EDITED ON Aug-14-01 AT 02:05PM (GMT)[p]I don't think it's a good idea to close the Pipboy 2000 LE. In Poland, we created a project to convert Fallout 1 into Polish language, but we still don't have a util that could pack Fallout 1 *.dat files.
 
RE: Problems with Fallout/Fallout 2

>>The exit grid locations are hardcoded in to the engine themselves. Without the source code, you really can't get around that.<<

This is something that bothers me about some developers. I doubt that any future games will be made with the engine used to create Fallout/Fallout 2. So why not release it to the public? It would be a great tool for modders and aspiring programmers alike. Id does this quite often with their Quake/Doom/Wolfienstein engines and source code, so why won't anyone else do it with non 1st person shotter engines? If the engines are pretty much dead it dosen't make sense to leave them on a hard drive collecting dust when someone could be using them and making something better for the gaming community at large.

True Raven
The Annunaki FanFic and Theory Guild
Coming Soon to a Vault near you!
 
RE: Problems with Fallout/Fallout 2

>This is something that bothers me
>about some developers. I doubt
>that any future games will
>be made with the engine
>used to create Fallout/Fallout 2.
>So why not release it
>to the public? It would
>be a great tool for
>modders and aspiring programmers alike.
>Id does this quite often
>with their Quake/Doom/Wolfienstein engines and
>source code, so why won't
>anyone else do it with
>non 1st person shotter engines?
>If the engines are pretty
>much dead it dosen't make
>sense to leave them on
>a hard drive collecting dust
>when someone could be using
>them and making something better
>for the gaming community at
>large.

It may seem simple, but for many companies it just isn't worth their time or energy to release the source code.

idSoftware did it for the most part because they're into Linux and the free software movement. Their games are also sold, for the most part, because people *can* make mods for it.

Personally, I think the government should pass a law encouraging or requiring software companies to release the source code to their programs five years after the programs are made unless the software contains vital code that cannot be distributed without compromising their current products.

-Xotor-

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Hey neighbour. When the Czech translation of Fallout was made two years ago, the guys simply left the files unpacked in the respective subfolders of the DATA folder. Did you consider that? It shouldn't be all that big, unless you're converting all the graphics. (The Czech translation weighed 1,3 MB.)

Sorry for the offtopic talk.

I think P2KLE should not close down. If you don't want to work on it anymore, at least keep the files for download... or... move them to the Vats :)
 
>Hey neighbour. When the Czech translation
>of Fallout was made two
>years ago, the guys simply
>left the files unpacked in
>the respective subfolders of the
>DATA folder. Did you consider
>that? It shouldn't be all
>that big, unless you're converting
>all the graphics. (The Czech
>translation weighed 1,3 MB.)
>
>Sorry for the offtopic talk.
>
>I think P2KLE should not close
>down. If you don't want
>to work on it anymore,
>at least keep the files
>for download... or... move them
>to the Vats :)

All those tiny files can kill older computers that rely on FAT16, though you don't see many of those around anymore.

-Xotor-

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Well, at least it would eliminate the pitiful remainder of obsolete machines that hinders technological evolution, right?


(Yes, that was a joke attempt.)
 
Out of business

Damn game developers! Why won't they leave the modding up to modding teams! With all these editors packed *with* games (FT and Arcanum) there is no use for a mod team...
 
RE: Out of business?

Smackrazor:

-have you ever thought of using freeware engines to produce work around Fallout? I`ve been fidling around with that idea before the tactics editors were released and seemed interesting and practical. I can help you contacting solid 2d and 3d artists, some worked in my old modding team and they`re work around Fallout is great.

-anyway, why just not give it a rest for a few weeks, then see what will come up (Arcanum or, who nows FO3, or even better, some people willing to do a wasteland mod...)?Put Pipboy in suspended animation and wait a bit more, if nothing happens that motivates you close the place and give all those wonderfull files to The Vats...
 
RE: Out of business?

>Smackrazor:
>
>-have you ever thought of using
>freeware engines to produce work
>around Fallout? I`ve been fidling
>around with that idea before
>the tactics editors were released
>and seemed interesting and practical.
>I can help you contacting
>solid 2d and 3d artists,
>some worked in my old
>modding team and they`re work
>around Fallout is great.
>
>-anyway, why just not give it
>a rest for a few
>weeks, then see what will
>come up (Arcanum or, who
>nows FO3, or even better,
>some people willing to do
>a wasteland mod...)?Put Pipboy in
>suspended animation and wait a
>bit more, if nothing happens
>that motivates you close the
>place and give all those
>wonderfull files to The Vats...
>

We have the arcanum dat format 99% figured out only to find out that the game comes with editors... how disheartening...

FO3 not gonna happen and arcanum comes with editors so not much at all will happen
 
RE: Out of business?

Arcanum won't ship with a full suite of editors. There would still need to be a utility for making tiles and sprites.
 
RE: Out of business?

>Arcanum won't ship with a full
>suite of editors. There would
>still need to be a
>utility for making tiles and
>sprites.

Well that's not gonna happen unless I persuade Red! to do something...
 
RE: Out of business?

And the reason you need Red for this is?

Even if you don't go graphics, there's still the DAT file format Arcanum uses that could stand to have an unpacker and repacker. From there, I'm sure there's a multitude of other things that could be required to make full blown mods, like sound file convertors.
 
RE: Out of business?

>And the reason you need Red
>for this is?
>
>Even if you don't go graphics,
>there's still the DAT file
>format Arcanum uses that could
>stand to have an unpacker
>and repacker. From there, I'm
>sure there's a multitude of
>other things that could be
>required to make full blown
>mods, like sound file convertors.
>


Sound files are mp3s... go to arcanum\modules\arcanum and then another dir and you see the mp3s

There's not much modding to do at all, all that's left is cheating... and TMS has never made a cheat
 
RE: Out of business?

Those are only the music files. The actual sound files are stored within the DAT files, which we still could use a utility for packing and unpacking.

I'm not sure what the format is for the sound files inside those DAT files is, they might be MP3s also. Then again, I don't have a utility to pack and unpack a DAT file.

Did I mention there's nothing to pack and unpack an Arcanum DAT file yet?
 
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