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Techinical programm0rz suggestions
Soldat Forums - Soldat Talk - Game Improvements / Suggestions
sauron_the_deceiver
September 17, 2003, 5:49 pm
Me and a friend were discussing...

1) What if you released a seperate version of Soldat, which had an open source for modding. The version would not be available for regsitering (so it wouldn't take the prominence of the primary version) and wouldn't register in the lobby (also for keeping the first version the mainly played one). You could put a signature piece of coding on it somewhere for legal rights and evidence (so people couldn't modify it a little bit and sell it commercially).

2) The open source game could have plugin weapons, so the guns could be modified or added to easily, without having to edit the coding as such.

3) Maps could have plugins as well, so people could add interactive scenery etc.

I won't give up on this source code shiat yet.

Cr4cK
September 17, 2003, 8:35 pm
I dont think michal would allow this :/

Outcast
September 17, 2003, 8:40 pm
Michal said something about making this game live on its own i think via open code....which means he will do it, when he thinks its the right moment :)

sauron_the_deceiver
September 17, 2003, 8:44 pm
Yeah but when Soldat is still being refreshed and updated would be the best time to introduce the people who prefer moddable games. Michal said he would release the coding when the game is finished and he isn't making it any more, which will be a while yet.

Even if this is out of the question for Michal, hopefully he'll consider doing it for 1.0.5b.

Social Poison
September 17, 2003, 9:21 pm
When did he say open code Outty?

I hope very sincerley that he'll add a full modding option (not the physics but the actual graphics, sounds, etc). I know this can and is done constantly (people making mods, like the Paintball mod which is awsome) but it's a big ass hassle to have multiple copies of soldat so you can keep individual mods.

I'm hoping the interface maker was just the first step in being able to Mod soldat ^_^

As far as open source though, I'm fairly certain he's shot this down before (which is contrary to what Outcast said). So I'm very curious as to what the real say is on that...


I don't know though...

I'll use Liero as an example.
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Liero is a game that is NOT open source (unfortunatly Joosa lost the source code in a hard drive crash, bah) however people started a modding community that was able to support iself even though the game was offline.

And I'm not talking just graphical and sound mods... LieroProMode had physics changes (someone figured out how to mess with the config file).

All this modding (Graphical, Sound, Physics, and virtually everything but the core programming) was awsome and very very fun. Unfortunatly the Liero Community is very close to dead because of the loss of it's key forum T_T at LieroNet.

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I understand that Michal probably wouldn't want to release the source. There are tons of reasons, from "frankly it's mine, so no!" to "I've worked very hard on this, I've taken pride in this, please understand that these hours of programming were done by me, not the community" to "(insert very good, non selfish reason here)"

However

Soldat could still have better access to modding capibilities, which from my expierience, can greatly increase the longevity of the game.
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Perhaps (this would be long run much later version) about half of Sauron's idea could be implemented. Make Soldat highly modifiable (with the exception of it's core), but if you have a mod activated (in the name of all things that are good, a built in mod "swapper" is HIGHLY needed) your Soldat does not register with the standard lobby.

The reason I say standard lobby is look at it this way. What is Counter-Strike? Essentially it's a very highly modified Half-Life (If I'm off on this [I'm not a CS player] I'm sorry, but follow anyways please ^_^). Which is probably played more? CS with very little doubt. That isn't to say I'd like to see a Soldat Mod become bigger than Soldat original, but what if included in the mod was it's own lobby_server.txt file where someone could make their OWN lobby server ^_^. The shear open endedness of it makes the posibilities endless.


However (Sauron will hate me for this) I DON'T think this should be done until Michal says "Ok, enough. Soldat is as perfect as it's ever going to get." and stops programming it.* (why stop programming? to make Soldat II! ;) lmao). Or else we run into version problems, and mod compatability throughout the versions.

This isn't such a big deal for say graphical or sound mods (generally all that happens is stuff is added and that new item doesn't have a mod [case in point the LAW for the paintball mod]) however when we're talking weapon or physics that can really really jack up the game/mod.

As I said this is an idea that could be implemented much later, and ideas may shift on how it could be done (hell I think my own ideas shifted during this post... [looks for self contradicting statements]).

Granted, the final say goes to the man with the predetor avatar.



* I mean this physics and weapon mod stuff with multiple lobby servers. I'd love to see a mod activator come out with the next version ^_^

sauron_the_deceiver
September 17, 2003, 10:17 pm
Well, take the weapons plugin idea for example. If Michal decided to include extra scripts to weaponry in Soldat, to add extra features, all it would take would be to, essentially, copy and paste the relative script into a custom weapon plugin.

I'm happier with Michal not releasing a source (if he does it anyway) until Soldat is done. Thats not essential to me. What I would like to see, and as soon as possible, is the potential to add things to the game using plugins, like Vehicles, gun attachments, ninja ropes and the like, to satisfy those not happy with Soldat and keep bugging the game improvements for it all (hey, isn't that what I'm doing with this source code crap?). I imagine people playing Soldat, and being a little disappointed with it because it doesn't have *this* function, and therefore not registering. If Michal did make it so it had a mod-switching function like Half Life, which disabled the official soldat lobby when you did, then I'm sure people would be pushed to downloading the famous vehicle mod and registering as a mental thanks for the ability to use these cool new mods.

If Michal doesn't do all this, I'd still really like to see plugins enabled for maps. I know someone posted asking for maps which could be coded a while back, and I remember believing it to be a really good idea, as destructable sceneries, water and those kinda suggestions could be done by others. Also, this would increase the use of custom maps and the mapmaker, which have never been that popular due to the no auto download factor.

If anyone wants to know why I find this kind of in-depth modding an attractive prospect, all I can say is that I've always wanted to be a modder of that sort, but the one multiplayer game that I truly enjoy is closed off from me. I see my friend continually bringing out new gun packs and bullet time features for Quake, and I get unbelievably jeleous >=(

Kamikaze_Ninja
September 18, 2003, 12:31 am
I love both of your ideas and back it up 100% ^_^ i wanna have a ninja mod where you can do martial arts type of stuff lol and all sorts of neo ninja weps.

Michal Marcinkowski
September 18, 2003, 12:28 pm
The reason I didn't release an SDK or anything from the source is because I didn't program Soldat thinking of it. Basically Soldat is not moddable from the source. I would have to release the whole source code and people would have to compile it in Delphi to make a new EXE. But... I can't do this. Everybody would see how the network protocol looks like, everybody would see how the anti-cheat works. It would be a disaster. The only way of making Soldat moddable, I think is making some sort of script files (for weapon behaviour, bots, game type rules and other stuff) and more config files (with physics vars like gravity).
But there is still a long time before this. Hopefully if version 1.1.6 will go well and there will be no big bugs I'll have the time to think about all this.

IRRiTANT
September 18, 2003, 5:34 pm
An open source [style] soldat would rule! It would totally open up the door for "real" game mods. Although I can see Michal's reasoning behind not wanting to release this version, if people saw how the anti-cheat system worked they coud make hacks for it e.t.c and Soldat would just become an online cheat fest!!!!

BruceAlmighty
September 18, 2003, 6:11 pm
wouldnt this be an open door for hackers and people that get their [:-censored]s and giggles from giving people viris'.

sauron_the_deceiver
September 18, 2003, 7:45 pm
Well I have no complaint about you not releasing the coding. I'd be happy and I'd shut up if you could do some sort of system for adding to the game instead of modifying...maybe a way of writing script files, as you said, which could be used to negate existing scripts (not remove them) and so create a mod without giving away the entire workings.

Am I right in thinking this would also lead to switching between mods in the main game - if you didn't remove the original code and instead made new scripts that edited which coding ran in the game?

IRRiTANT
September 18, 2003, 8:37 pm
So your not actually proposing Soldat be open source, only that it's engine be more open to modification. HMMMMMMMmmmmmmm Interesting. I hope this gets implememted.

SkinnedAlive
September 18, 2003, 9:24 pm
*ahem*
Hi guys, I'm this mate sauron keeps talking about.
Anyway...
Might I suggest that the gameplay code be entirely seperate from the engine code itself rather than using scripts. That way loads more power would be given to modders to create what THEY want. Instead they are only limited to the functions given to them.
Of course using a mod should render you inable to connect to the original soldat servers, only to each other through IP.

NuZZ
September 18, 2003, 11:38 pm
Yep, modification... I think we can leave that 2 michal 2 decide whether/not to make it... Even know he said he was gonna aDD it later...
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And there is Liero Extreme, fully moddable, damnage, sounds, graphics, its online and etc...
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Maybe 2 much modding would stuff the games real feel up... They will make bunny mods :/

sauron_the_deceiver
September 19, 2003, 5:29 pm
Yeah, but if people defiled the modding system you wouldn't have to download the mods, would you? And considering the lobby would be disabled for them, it wouldn't get blocked up with pointless games.

As long as Michal can make a script file system, or if he seperates the code from the scripts, then I fail to see what could be so bad about this.