1
Help Wanted / One common project (to rule them all ?)
« on: April 30, 2017, 01:08:12 am »
The modding philosophy is to give the user as much freedom as he wants, to cherry-pick changes he wants and changes he doesn't want, leading to him getting an optimal experience.
But when you're new and arrive in the Workshop page, there are so many mods out there ! And you have no idea who is compatible with who.. So people will try to arrange a load order approximately, and then will get a suboptimal experience because some mods will overwrite the files of some other mod.
Given that we got some heavy modders out there, that I know produce mods of great quality, why not create some kind of project where our respective mods would just be part of something of a scale way bigger than what we can achieve all alone ?
When I look at what you guys have done on the Workshop, I see :
I'm quite sure there's a lot more that can be added in Torchlight 2. What would we gain from working together ?
1) It would be the overhaul mod to use for an optimal experience, gathering a maximum of interesting features in the Workshop. No more going through the whole thing and min-maxing your 10 mod limits
2) By working together, we would ensure our respective mods are compatible and playable with each others. This could also involve direct feedback between us, allowing to fine tune our mods more easily.
3) Generally it's just more motivating when there's several people working together. But you guys already did that for TL1CP ;p
4) Some of our mods make the game easier, some make it harder.. Working together means we can sort it out and leverage the difficulty, providing an optimal experience for the player
5) Help each other out !
The thing I'd like to see in Torchlight 2, but that none of us can do alone :
If we can manage to put it all together, we would have a very strong mod that would bring to Torchlight 2 even more than Synergies! I wouldn't want it to be the Median XL of Torchlight 2, because MXL changes way too much.. But the players should have a great time playing this combination of mods, because it would be designed for it.
Instead of each of us doing things on our own, we would be creating the overhaul/megamod of Torchlight 2.
That's for the basic idea. Now for the realization, there are quite some questions to be asked :
First of all, would you be willing to do this ? It's a big change in the workflow, and perhaps you prefer to work alone, which is totally fine.
Then, what kind of organization should there be ? Is it technically possible to work on a single mod with several people ? How to ensure no one breaks anything before pushing an update publicly ? :P
Last but not least : obviously we will all have different visions for the game at some point. Do you think it would be an obstacle ? I mean, personally. At some point, changing key features could mean discussing it before-hand, which is harder to do than working alone
I'd be very interested in participating in such a project. Torchlight 2 is the ARPG with the most potential out there - and I believe that with the right modifications/additions, it can become a truly awesome experience.
I'm curious to hear your thoughts about it.
But when you're new and arrive in the Workshop page, there are so many mods out there ! And you have no idea who is compatible with who.. So people will try to arrange a load order approximately, and then will get a suboptimal experience because some mods will overwrite the files of some other mod.
Given that we got some heavy modders out there, that I know produce mods of great quality, why not create some kind of project where our respective mods would just be part of something of a scale way bigger than what we can achieve all alone ?
When I look at what you guys have done on the Workshop, I see :
- A lot of new classes : the amazing TL1CP project, but also there's the Variant classes compilation maintained by doudley and Viz
- LAO 3.0 by RnF : not only does it provide an endless game, but it also provides more fun with items in general, and seems to rebalance the damage/armor graphs as well
- Brother in Arms Warbound : some people release DLCs for less than that
it completely changes how you play the game, because you have someone else to take care of. And you can imagine synergies between your companion and yourself
- Various quality of life improvements
I'm quite sure there's a lot more that can be added in Torchlight 2. What would we gain from working together ?
1) It would be the overhaul mod to use for an optimal experience, gathering a maximum of interesting features in the Workshop. No more going through the whole thing and min-maxing your 10 mod limits
2) By working together, we would ensure our respective mods are compatible and playable with each others. This could also involve direct feedback between us, allowing to fine tune our mods more easily.
3) Generally it's just more motivating when there's several people working together. But you guys already did that for TL1CP ;p
4) Some of our mods make the game easier, some make it harder.. Working together means we can sort it out and leverage the difficulty, providing an optimal experience for the player
5) Help each other out !
The thing I'd like to see in Torchlight 2, but that none of us can do alone :
- Provide endgame challenges. Similar to Synergies, but without the farm-fest that it is currently. With very tough encounters.
- Rework and rebalance the vanilla classes
- Maybe some other stuff too!
If we can manage to put it all together, we would have a very strong mod that would bring to Torchlight 2 even more than Synergies! I wouldn't want it to be the Median XL of Torchlight 2, because MXL changes way too much.. But the players should have a great time playing this combination of mods, because it would be designed for it.
Instead of each of us doing things on our own, we would be creating the overhaul/megamod of Torchlight 2.
That's for the basic idea. Now for the realization, there are quite some questions to be asked :
First of all, would you be willing to do this ? It's a big change in the workflow, and perhaps you prefer to work alone, which is totally fine.
Then, what kind of organization should there be ? Is it technically possible to work on a single mod with several people ? How to ensure no one breaks anything before pushing an update publicly ? :P
Last but not least : obviously we will all have different visions for the game at some point. Do you think it would be an obstacle ? I mean, personally. At some point, changing key features could mean discussing it before-hand, which is harder to do than working alone
I'd be very interested in participating in such a project. Torchlight 2 is the ARPG with the most potential out there - and I believe that with the right modifications/additions, it can become a truly awesome experience.
I'm curious to hear your thoughts about it.