phkb wrote: ↑Mon Oct 16, 2023 5:37 am
hiran wrote: ↑Mon Oct 16, 2023 4:14 am
For new players I do not believe changes to the original game do matter. After all, what would they measure against if they never played Vanilla?
It becomes crucially important when trying to (a) explain what's going on, and (b) debug something that's gone wrong. I get it that new players probably won't care, but the lines are starting to blur (if they haven't faded out already) between core game and modded game. As someone who is trying to keep a foot in the mod camp as well as the core game dev camp, it makes my life... well, challenging is probably the best way to put it!
A bit late here, I know, but just wanted to pick up on what phkb said here.
People have long made the 'must start with vanilla' argument but phkb breaks it down here.
It's not starting with mods that's a problem, it's starting with mods when it's not clear what they do.
If I start with a mod called 'tougher pirates oxp' and find I'm regularly getting pulverised by pirates then, as long as I know that I have that mod installed, then it's fairly obvious what I could do about it.
Now in the vanilla game, if I found pirates to be too easy to deal with I could look for a suitable mod but I would at least have to find it first.
There is even an argument to say that the first of these two scenarios is preferable but, as phkb points out, the lines are often blurred.
So, how to make things clear?
Well firstly, let's go for strawberry rather than neapolitan shall we?
- Small number of mods
- Clearly, rather than artistically, named mods only
- No obvious overlapping effects
- A taste of what mods can do rather than what a modded game looks like
On the first point, I'm thinking no more than five - we can change the game significantly with just one mod so five gives both variety and managability for the user.
On the second, 'Random Ship Names' is fairly obvious but (my own) 'Rise of the Hunter' less so, even though it very much hints at it's effect.
On the third, keep the mods away from each other in their effects as far as is possible. So if one oxp adds ships then don't include another unless it's entirely obvious which oxp they would belong to. Even if they all compliment each other, like five 'quality of life' updates', instead let's just showcase one of them.
And lastly, if we're going for 'mods for beginners' then why not effectively make them mod tutorials?
I don't mean like the current in-game tutorial, I mean like you could be taught to learn almost anything: with simple but preferably interesting examples.
In the end, very few of us are going to run a game like oolite, one which was hasn't moved terribly far from an 80s (90s if you count the frontier influences) design standpoint, with only five mods. We just need to give them a taste, maybe even of the more radical mods, a showcase of possibilty if you like but, and I make this point very strongly:
only one big change at a time.
So here's my suggestion for five categories (not five oxps) to consider in order to help create such a starter oxp, which might theoretically contain some, or all, of the following:
Cosmetic
This has long been suggested as a safe category and so it's hard to go wrong here.
Start Conditions
Providing a different flavour could be as simple as equipping the player to start out as a combateer rather than a trader. Scoops and a beam laser at the cost of starting in a ship with a smaller cargo bay. I'm not sure it would be that much easier but it sure would be different.
Feature
This could be any one, potentially quite radical game changer. It doesn't even really matter what it is, as long as it's absolutely clear in which area(s) of the game it will be making a difference
Convenience
It could be as simple as reorganising the f3 screen or ameleorating masslock. One simple quality of life change, to show the player that a 'pet hate' can almost certainly be addressed by an oxp.
Activity
I've put activity rather than mission as missions tend to have start conditions. Maybe it's an exploration oxp or even just a bounty scanner. Add in hoopy casinos perhaps or even the black monks!
An example of how
NOT to do it using two of my own oxps:
Waepon Laws & Demand Driven Economy
Maybe add one but not both. It would be adding two 'features' instead of just one. Even if they're actually quite seperate, even if they don't influence each other, they both change the strategy of how the game is played. Highlight just one of them and we see see it's effects all the clearer.
All the above is IMHO of course, just a little blunt in places for (hopefully) clarity.
