Announcing Modkit, universal visual mod tool in development

[ZzZombo]

Hello. I'm about to launch my Patreon campaign for Modkit: universal visual modding kit. (G)ZDoom has a lot of options for folks in modding – but none for a casual level guy who can't code, and is afraid of editing raw game data, even in text form, like Decorate. This is a trait shared by many games in the world. Hell, the only one who comes with a good noob-friendly visual editor is the good old WC3, with its glorious WC3 World Editor, anyhow. Here is a short excerpt from my campaign description:

What modding should be like:

• Have a single universal tool for different games, available on as many platforms and devices as possible.
• Game data editing must be done via a nice graphical user interface rather than mundane text files, or cryptic scripts you have learn to code and put in just the right place to make the whole thing work, thus making modding widely accessible to casual level folks who have not learnt any programming in their entire life. Even if the most they achieve is make a monster shoot rockets out of its ass with the speed of a minigun, I don't care, as long as it's fun for them and anybody else.
• It should be fairly easy to distribute/find published mods for modders/players via a catalog. Players should be easily informed about a new version of mods they play, and leave feedback.
• Modders should be able to form teams in order to work on modifications together, discussing things among them.
  
  Let me reiterate on the second point: modding should be absolutely accessible to everyone, w/o you having to read a book first, programming or not. Anybody should be able to just fire up an editing tool, click here and there, save, launch the game and see their changes in game. Modding is really fun if you get to see how your modifications influence the game, and open a lot of possibilities, so why should somebody who doesn't have the skills to code or read/edit raw game data miss on that?

So Modkit is my way of making this real. It is supposed to be available to everyone both by lowering the entry level and making it available on as many platforms and devices as possible. The word "universal" in the title is because I'm aiming at making it support a wide assortment of games. For now I planned (G)ZDoom, 7 Days to Die and Dota 2. Patrons will be able to suggest and vote on games to add support to Modkit.

I'm announcing it here, because I have been having fun modding Doom since my 12, and I believe that despite the age of Doom, Doom modding will stay alive for a long time, so (G)ZDoom and based on it source ports would greatly benefit from ModKit's success. If you share my views, and have a spare buck, join me now by pledging. If you pledge $5 or more by the end of April, you will be able to suggest (G)ZDoom as the primary game to focus on at the project launch!

And to clear any doubt, I have already some progress with it. Paying me will allow me to speed up the progress, goes without saying. Check out the campaign page https://www.patreon.com/ZzZombo soon in order to see a showcase of visual editing a game (goes live within a day, if all goes as planned).

If you are still reading and wonder what Patreon is

Patreon is a membership platform that makes it easy for creators to get paid. Patreon is a way to join a creator for things you love to see, and pay him for them.

[Arctangent]

I have no idea how you plan the "universal" part of this aside from taping together a different tool for each game and claiming it as one tool, especially considering the size of both the ZScript and DOTA 2 API alone. Especially especially since those two don't even use compatible syntaxes - even if ZScript wasn't its own custom-made language, C and Lua don't exactly fit under the same tool.

[ZzZombo]

Nothing complicated here. There will be indeed only one tool. Under the hood I store all objects in a single, universal format, like

Code: Select all

game: 'zdoom', type: 'actor', data: <actor data>

. Then, upon exporting, an exporter for the target game gets to transform the data into an appropriate format.

[phantombeta]

This will not work. You're aiming to support extremely different games that aren't anything like each other. Just GZDoom and some modern FPS wouldn't work, even, because Doom does everything in ways that modern games avoid.
Something like this is literally impossible.
Do you even know anything about programming?

[ZzZombo]

What is your argument exactly? I don't really get it. What exactly does modding have to do with modern FPS anyway; at most you can make levels, but that's mapping, not modding, unless we disagree on what modding and mapping is? "Wide assortment of games" doesn't mean of all them. Obviously certain games won't be supported ever.

But saying it's impossible to boil things from different games down to a simple key-value pair, for example, and present users with that, is, frankly, unexpected by me.

[Rachael]

I think what's really going to win people over is seeing a demo of this in action. You can't blame people for being a bit cynical considering how many patreon/crowdfunding campaigns have blown up in their faces over the past couple years.

[ZzZombo]

Well, alright, were is a showcase video I intended to show at campaign launch, showing editing a game's objects.
EDIT: I gave up with the youtube tag: https://youtu.be/WQ5jqlXkTO8

[Kinsie]

You only put the code at the end of the URL within the tags.


Looks like flat-design Dehacked. Not really bringing a lot to the table UI-wise outside of "here is a list of variables and I guess some of them have a tooltip attached", either.

[ZzZombo]

This is unfinished product, barely an alpha, you have to realize that. The campaign may allow me to work on it faster, if it gains traction.

[Rachael]

To be completely fair my initial reaction was "oh god yet another patreon" - but honestly I this project does have some potential - even what was shown seems to be more than what we have - we've never had a GUI DECORATE designer that I know of and that could be really helpful for people not wanting to manipulate text files. I think it's a little ambitious, and should probably set its sights low at first to be more doable, but it can build from there once it has something.

[Kinsie]

This is unfinished product, barely an alpha, you have to realize that.

For an entirely different game using entirely different scripting languages (Python vs. ZScript). There's nothing here that gives me any indication that it'll handle things like flags or actor states without actually being harder to work with than the old ways.

Actually, I feel like prodding this a bit more:

Have a single universal tool for different games, available on as many platforms and devices as possible.

So it's a web app wrapped in a native-app-ifier like node-webkit. Gotcha.

Game data editing must be done via a nice graphical user interface rather than mundane text files, or cryptic scripts you have learn to code and put in just the right place to make the whole thing work, thus making modding widely accessible to casual level folks who have not learnt any programming in their entire life.

The sheer number of Brutal Doom forks out there tell me that even the programming illiterate are able to figure this sort of thing out.

It should be fairly easy to distribute/find published mods for modders/players via a catalog. Players should be easily informed about a new version of mods they play, and leave feedback.

So, idgames? Or this forum? Or ModDB? Or Steam Workshop for your Dota stuff? Really seems like you want to reinvent the wheel here.

Modders should be able to form teams in order to work on modifications together, discussing things among them.

This is already available using Discord and Github. More wheel-reinventing, except in this case the wheels are backed by many millions of dollars of venture capitol, so you almost certainly won't be able to match them.

Let me reiterate on the second point: modding should be absolutely accessible to everyone, w/o you having to read a book first, programming or not. Anybody should be able to just fire up an editing tool, click here and there, save, launch the game and see their changes in game.

...unless those changes cause an error. Sadly, even with older engines like GZDoom or "simplified" game creation engines like Klik & Play, you have to do at least a little bit of reading or tutorial-watching to make things functional. If you try to remove that, you end up with something too simplified, like that one Infinite Game Generator thing someone tried to Kickstart that was basically just a Mario 1 clone where you could swap the sprites between a limited number of sets and the levels were randomly generated.

I don't want to sound completely pessimistic, mind. You have plenty of enthusiasm behind you, and there's always room for more tools to make modding easier (DEHACKED stuff for Boom maps could definitely stand to be made less cryptic!), but from what little we've seen, your current approach - as well-intentioned as it is - looks very limiting and may be barking up the wrong tree.

[ZzZombo]

@Kinsie, you are thinking a tad too narrow, not all games have the same system, like Steam Workshop, available. For example, 7DtD doesn't seem to have any usable central catalog of mods, that is actively maintained, so you wouldn't get, say, an outdated mod, incompatible with the latest version of the game. The forums are not managed well, and have a lot of noise pollution to my liking. Sure, modders already can communicate via Discord or whatever, yes, no harm in not depending on an external service when you are out modding, is there, that's how I see it. And let me stress that this is only a small and non-essential part of the whole package. The editor itself will be the prime focus and the main deliverable. "Even the programming illiterate are able to figure this sort of thing out" -- yeah, and now, coming from a guy with plenty of programming languages known and used in his life, I, speaking for myself, wouldn't want, say, to Learn Yet Another Programming Language To Make Some Simple Modification in Some Game. For example, C#, popular in Unity. And so I see where guys who are told "you can do it yourself, it's easy" coming from when they point out why it's not easy for them, for a different reasons. And also, that's why there obviously will be throughout validation and stopgaps to prevent known issues and pitfalls, like zero tick loops in states.

[Kinsie]

@Kinsie, you are thinking a tad too narrow, not all games have the same system, like Steam Workshop, available. For example, 7DtD doesn't seem to have any usable central catalog of mods, that is actively maintained, so you wouldn't get, say, an outdated mod, incompatible with the latest version of the game.

You didn't look very hard. And it's not like external mod portals don't have their own potential issues if left neglected...

Sure, modders already can communicate via Discord or whatever, yes, no harm in not depending on an external service when you are out modding, is there, that's how I see it.

I'd say there's actually plenty of harm in spending man-months bolting a less-secure clone of something that already exists (and that your target audience likely already uses!) onto your tool instead of focusing development on the primary reason for its existence - making mods.

And let me stress that this is only a small and non-essential part of the whole package. The editor itself will be the prime focus and the main deliverable.

Making even a simple chat program that isn't either
a.) full of more security holes than swiss cheese (exposing people's IP addresses etc.)
or
b.) just a embedded IRC client with less features than existing free options like HexChat
isn't the most trivial of processes. Hell, even major services like Skype struggle with the first point...

[ZzZombo]

Maybe we we should just end this debate here. As I said, it's not the major part anyhow, but I feel it's only natural what released mods should be readily available at the same place where they were made in the first place; same deal with "less-secure clone of something that already exist". I don't even know exactly how will this all be implemented, I can upload mods automatically to something the linked site, or ModDB, or make a separate section on the site for that, it's planned as the last piece of the project. You are bringing inadequate amount of attention to this, really.

EDIT: I'm going live riiight now...

Done! Check https://www.patreon.com/ZzZombo out!

[Kinsie]

I missed this part:

If you pledge $5 or more by the end of April, you will be able to suggest (G)ZDoom as the primary game to focus on at the project launch!