Bringing Elemental style modding into Demigod

By Frogboy on June 16, 2009 8:19:29 PM from

One of the conclusions both Stardock and Gas Powered Games have come to is that modding is going to be absolutely key for Demigod’s long-term success. To that end, we have been trying to come up with a way to do modding in such a way that, to be candid, doesn’t involve a massive amount of work just for Demigod.

The solution, it seems, may come from the modding support we’re building into Impulse that was originally scheduled to debut with Elemental. This wouldn’t be the first time that a feature being developed for Elemental has found its way into Demigod. The in-game Friends stuff in Demigod may seem a little weak because it was originally intended to show up a year later for Elemental but was decided it needed to be available in some basic form in Demigod.

So how would these mods work?

Basically, users would control what mods they want to use via in-game overlay. Then, when someone hosts a custom game, it would automatically download whatever mods were needed and enable them when a person joined the game. The mods would be hosted and moderated by Demigodthegame.com and would support basically anything cool that people wanted to make.

So when would this show up? Well, right now GPG is putting the finishing touches on Demigod v1.1. So this wouldn’t show up until at least v1.2 which would be sometime this Summer.

Hopefully this will definitively answer the question: Will Demigod support modding? The answer, it seems is yes.

+912 Karma | 51 Replies

Great - now how about the same for Sins - at least with map downloading?

I have been saying for ages that Impulse should allow people to download and install custom maps - Centurion has been REALLY asking for maps here. We've been told that the Sins engine doesn't allow it - so if impulse can???

Will Demigod support modding? The answer, it seems is yes.

awesome

Quoting Misfortune,

reply 25

I was commenting on mods chosen by game creator, auto downloaded and activated. This will not work for UI mods.

I don't mind all mods being certified and for example signed by demigodthegame.com and that being the only source of them.

I wasn't commenting on your post just in general.

I'm concerned that this would fracture the game community. People want certain mods, and certain people don't want mods.

when i host a game. you play by my rules. if you dont like it leave.

That sounds great. I hope this makes it possible to make new maps too.

Also I have suggestion for the "friends stuff" you mentioned, it would be very helpful if I could see what the gamename is when a friend is "ingame", so I could just join the game instead of having to ask what the game is called. It would be great too, to get a message if someone from my friendslist joins a game and I'm currently not in a game myself, so I could just join in.

Great job so far guys. I love this game

I know you guys are busy, doing all that important stuff regarding networking issues, but one of the most important things you should do is make those responsible for it to hold a serious debate on how to improve balance in-game.

I have a feeling many topics in "Ideas" part are completely missed; and we have to keep mental notes on what was worth discussing.

Balance, that is what this game needs on longer terms.

It can only be achieved by consulting those who play in a systematic way. Many ingenious propositions, not only regarding balance, are probably lost (at least at the moment) because you could not assign one person to monitor what's been suggested there. Why open it in the first place then?

We need a constructive debate on how to improve balance.

2c from a player who took a long break from DG.

UI modding can be supported already with /allowmismatch. I believe that once the game supports modding in general, UI modding will come with it. Remember that the in-game system now can differentiate between sim and UI mods.

I dont think UI mods are a good idea... They will open a lot of cheating possibilities and could mean the end of the game.

All kinds of Mods should only be allowed if both players agree on it.

A solid moding system would have a very limited set of capabilites for UI mods which would prevent cheating. Basically the system would prevent you from including anything in an UI mod that would not be considered fair by the developers.

/allowmismatch as far as we know could also allow some forms of cheating. Has anyone checked if it allows one sided sim changes (I understand that sim differences would likely cause desync, but still...)? Maybe allows each peer to be authorative about the state of some of its parameters and the others to accept that state blindly...

Anyway, it's good to hear that mods are a big priority and I'm sure all this is being carefuly looked at. I hope 1.1 will soon return a lot of confidence in SD/GPG's ability to deliver quality improvements to Demigod.

P.S. Please don't forget that there is still work to be done on Pantheon and the stats website. Some updates on status would be greatly appreciated.

UI mods are limited by what information is exposed by the UI interfaces, so cheating is unlikely.

Retro there is a lot of balance discussion all over the forums and it seems to be noticed, eg Erebus nerf and HoL changes. The problem is that if you make a thread about balance you aren't guarunteed to get responses from experienced players, you may only get opinions from people who haven't been playing very long which makes the discussion less valuable to the devs. The general feeling seems to be that balance is not a big deal atm, fixing niggling control bugs and improving the UI on the other hand seem to be major gripes.

We don't know how many threads are read but not responded to by the devs. I can't see an easy solution to this.

I am well aware of that, so make a moderated and supervised discussion regarding all the changes people are proposing. It's not a hard thing to do.

UI mods (once approved and put on the demigod server) should be able to be chosen individually whether or not the other players were using them. Sim mods of course need to be chosen by the game creator and everyone is forced to use them.

Corollary to the above is that UI mods should be usable within Pantheon/Skirmish games whether or not other players are using them. they should not be limited to Custom games only.

Keep in mind, only mods that are "approved" and on the servers can be used, so there should be no fear of cheating UI mods giving an unfair advantage to the person using them. They're just for people that want to sacrifice screen space for additional info, like the Team Panel.

quoting post

Will Demigod support modding? The answer, it seems is yes.

Good, modding has always helped games to grow popularity. But i think there are some tools that the community needs for map making and, why not, for demigods making. I don't think the results would be great, given the complexity of the graphics and animations, but at least they could try.

What about an ETA for 1.1 and the new demigods? When are the new demigods supposed to be released? This summer? Or later?

Why so little updates (journals) lately? You could always lock them, if you don't like what people are posting...We would like to know more about the two new Demigods and what are the future plans beyond the 2 demigods and the clan wars dlc.

Quoting Dead Ghost,

reply 13

What about an ETA for 1.1 and the new demigods? When are the new demigods supposed to be released? This summer? Or later?

Why so little updates (journals) lately? You could always lock them, if you don't like what people are posting...We would like to know more about the two new Demigods and what are the future plans beyond the 2 demigods and the clan wars dlc.

Dont ask for more journals hes doing really great so far.

Just try to find another publisher who publish journals as much as stardock do. I bet you wont find another.

So please people dont get too greedy. And let the Frog sleep a bit to recover from the tough launch.

That is awesome news and sounds like a great decision! LIVE ON DEMIGOD!

to kill the moob, its sad to think this should of been what it was like at release, with good connection stuff, and modding

but it wasnt

there needs to be a way to introduce new characters "officially" such that they become an addition to the existing 8 that everyone knows. otherwise these mods, like one guy said, will fracture or silo the community as some players will only play with certain mods.

the only way Demigod can compete with these action-rpg games (including dota itself) is through constant character expansion and game balancing, and feature evolution IMO.

maybe a ranking system on mods or characters can be introduced and if they char reaches a certain threshold of approval, it can then become a legitimate or "official" character in the lineup to choose from.

This makes me smile.

I assume these are UI and rule mods, not mods that add extra content (yet?).

Quoting woppin,

reply 10

UI mods are limited by what information is exposed by the UI interfaces, so cheating is unlikely.

Retro there is a lot of balance discussion all over the forums and it seems to be noticed, eg Erebus nerf and HoL changes. The problem is that if you make a thread about balance you aren't guarunteed to get responses from experienced players, you may only get opinions from people who haven't been playing very long which makes the discussion less valuable to the devs. The general feeling seems to be that balance is not a big deal atm, fixing niggling control bugs and improving the UI on the other hand seem to be major gripes.

We don't know how many threads are read but not responded to by the devs. I can't see an easy solution to this.

One of the reason for no mod support is exactly this, that the ui mods for demigod/supcom engine can access lots of stuff that they should not for fair play... In supcom ui mods can mean easy maphacks and display everything of your opponents.

I am very worried about the modding scattering everyone. If there are mods, they should probably be a testing arena - From there, people pick the best mods. These mods should then go to a governing body (i.e Stardock) for approval and have one game revision change for everyone with the best mods, demigods, maps.

so this mean something like the Mutators in UT2004? cause that would make a lot more sense. something where maps, mods, textures, models etc are all downloaded through Impulse while your in the lobby and are chosen by the game creatror at the start.

this would mean that UI mod would be seperate or personal (unless that UI mod was needed for a specific map [thinking RPG maps here])

wow, awesome!

maps and mods (AND much needed, MORE CONTENT!!)= long term sucess, you are correct! Let's see it happen!

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Bringing Elemental style modding into Demigod