Anyone successfully published a mod?

[Legate of Mineta]

Toxicologist;

 

It's compulsory because the game has to be taught how everything relates. For some changes there really is no reason for it, but no option was ever built in to remove the cross-checking, alas.

 

I have often cursed the time needed when making a simple test mod.

[Ranielle Limeleaf]

Anything that requires a supercomputer to work fast is awesome in my book. And holy database, how long did it take you to piece all of these things together?

[Toxicologist]

Forgive me if I don't share that sentiment... to be honest, while I do love Academagia, the whole programming side of things appear to be... inefficient. Both the main game and the Mod Tools.

 

I'm sort of spoiled in other moddable games in the relative speed at which simple (or even complicated) Mods could be compiled. It seems like with Academagia, I'll have to use Mods other people made (and I do hope we'll see lots of them for Academagia!) to satisfy my thirst for customisation.

 

It would be really nice if the time-and-resource-consuming checking phase could be forcibly skipped, but meh.

[Shingai]

Uff.. third time I'm getting the error. I guess it won't just go away by trying. Erm do you think there is a way around it? I'm asking again, since I'm not sure if you've read my last post.

[Legate of Mineta]

Shingai;

 

Ah, I missed your post. I haven't seen this particular error, but it states that your Music is missing. I would guess that your copy of the database is corrupted- try downloading a new version of the AMO, that's most likely to be the problem.

[Dremarian]

Okay. I created something from the mod base, and it compiled. When I run it alone - I get the new background option and the new familiar option I wanted.

When I try to add in the two towers at the same time...

I lose both options.

 

I believe you said we could run two mods at the same time?

Is it even necessary to run both at this time, because I created it from the mod-base?

Or am I, or is the program doing something we shouldn't be?

 

Shingai;

I got a similar error when I was trying to compile the mod on my computer. After transferring it over to a friends computer that runs Win7, 64 bit with 16 gigs of ram... ...It compiled properly. I would assume this may be of the 'out of memory' errors they were talking about in an earlier post.

[Mizzou]

I was really looking forward to using the modtool but it takes waaaaaay to long to publish. I started it in the early evening last night and checked it this morning (~12 hours) and it was only at 20%. I gave up since I need to use my computer for other things today.

 

Looks like I'll have to wait for others who have more patience than me to make mods.

[Legate of Mineta]

Dremarian;

 

At this moment, it looks like there is an issue for (at least) Backgrounds and two mods simultaneously. If you made your mod from the Mod Base, then you can just use that one and you'll have everything from Legacy of the Towers (no need to run two). We'll be correcting the issue in a future Patch, though- maybe Patch 13.

[Toxicologist]

The Mod I've been publishing just said it's completed (when it was 33% a few minutes ago). But there's nothing.

 

Really though, the Mod Tools are so... user hostile. The long publishing time (in my case failure to complete at all) for even the simplest of Mods is a huge turn-off: if it's a one-time thing (and if it actually completes) I won't be that bothered, but you'll have to go through it every single time you make a tweak to the Mod. Also, if a new patch (and therefore a new Mod Base) comes out, will we need to rebuild our Mods using the new Mod Base to get the benefits of the patch? If that's so then God no.

 

I know you said making the Mod Tools less user hostile is a low priority, but IMO it's hostile to the point of being almost unusable (except as a way to look into Academagia's workings, which by the way is nice in itself). I'm no programmer, but it wouldn't be too difficult to provide an option to skip the checking phase... would it?

 

Again I'm no programmer and I have no idea about how these things work, but from what I've heard about this checking process... it seems to be just a horribly inefficient debugging system. I really don't care if I completely break Academagia with a faulty Mod (can always re-install it), I just want to be able to actually create a Mod to begin with.

[Legate of Mineta]

Toxicologist;

 

Unfortunately, the Mod Tools are somewhat user hostile- but that is because they are a development tool, and not intended for commercial release. Many Academagians requested them, and, having been modders in other games ourselves, we wanted to release them to you. But they have UI quirks and resource requirements which are indeed out of line for most users, and definitely need patience to have success. We are listening, however, and will try to make the Toolset for Year 2 (if not Year 1!) more streamlined- but ultimately they must remain a tool for the development of the game, and thus the focus may be different than the needs of most users.

 

The Mods you make will be usable going forward, and you will not need to make a new one at each change of content (the reason is the AMO: as long as your Mod is based on the same AMO, they will merge correctly.)

 

I understand your feeling, though, and I hope we are able to adapt the mod tools as they are to your purpose.

[Toxicologist]

Hmmm. A question: what would happen if you convert a Mod into Official Content, and then publish it?

 

It seems much faster than publishing a Mod. Though I don't know if it will actually produce something usable.

[Legate of Mineta]

Toxicologist;

 

Well, you would be able to play the game using that content (just open the resultant file as a zip and unpack it under Official Content), but you would probably not be able to upgrade at each new DLC or Content Patch (you would need to remake your mod from scratch, although it *might* work.)

[Toxicologist]

Mmmm, I thought it might be something like that: usable but not upgradable.

 

Still, considering how much faster it is (20% in 50 minutes, as opposed to 20% in 8 hours), I'm willing to give it a try.

[Mizzou]

@Toxicologist: Have you been able to get a mod to work by converting it to the official content? I went thru the steps that Legate mentioned and the changes I made showed up but when I try to save the game, it crashes. I was really hoping that method would work since it the publishing step is a lot faster, even if it is a few hours for me.

 

I think I'm about to give up on making a mod if it's going to be this much trouble.

[Toxicologist]

It does indeed work for me, and I can save without problems (so far). However, I cannot load any Mods (i.e. the official DLCs), although that doesn't matter (for now) since those are incorporated into the "Official Content" anyway.

 

Seeing as DLCs and Content Patches are not terribly common, publishing Mods as Official Content is, for me, far superior to publishing them as actual Mods.

[Mizzou]

Maybe I did something wrong. I might as well give it another try in case I screwed something up with the mod. I really hope I can get it to work, publishing it as the Official content is much faster for me.

[Toxicologist]

Indeed. It appears that making Mods compatible with future Content and DLCs increases publishing time by 1000%... hmmm. =|

[Gwenio]

Toxicologist;

 

Well, you would be able to play the game using that content (just open the resultant file as a zip and unpack it under Official Content), but you would probably not be able to upgrade at each new DLC or Content Patch (you would need to remake your mod from scratch, although it *might* work.)

 

That would only matter for the release version, for testing/personal mods it would not matter as much. If creating official content is faster it might be worth adding the ability to create an explicit test module that uses the same process as official content but it goes to a test directory and can then be selected instead of the official content (or just have a directory for test content that can be used as an alternate for the official content without actually overwriting the official content). This would be better for people who are just experimenting.

 

-----

 

Edit:

 

The switch between loading official content and test content could easily be done as a command line parameter. Then it would just be a matter of switching file paths to look in (unless the parameter IS the alternate file path to use with the official content being loaded when it is not present).

 

Also one way to reduce publishing time would be to have a(n optional) file that stores the relationships from the last successful build so that only the changes would need to be checked. This is done by most commercial compilers (with incremental compiling / linking), and while it is likely to be difficult to implement reduced times would ultimately be helpful when creating more official content for the later years / additional DLC. Depending on how robust it is, this could even allow for it to be stopped and resumed later.

[Legate of Mineta]

Gwenio;

 

Thanks! Given that we are moving now into production on Year 2 as well as a secret project, I am not sure we'll revisit the Year 1 Tools. The Year 2 Toolset will try to incorporate some additional features to make it easier for Players to use.

[Nyaa]

Thanks! Given that we are moving now into production on Year 2 as well as a secret project

Is the team making a whole new program for year 2?

[Legate of Mineta]

Nyaa;

 

It's mostly new, although some components are reused.

[Gwenio]

Gwenio;

 

Thanks! Given that we are moving now into production on Year 2 as well as a secret project, I am not sure we'll revisit the Year 1 Tools. The Year 2 Toolset will try to incorporate some additional features to make it easier for Players to use.

 

Yes, if you are making a new tool then it does not make sense to make large changes to the old one.

 

-----------

 

What would happen if I delete the content from the Base that is not changed in a mod? Would it still work correctly or not (or does it depend on what is removed)? If unneeded stuff can be taken out then it would likely speed up the publishing process.

[Legate of Mineta]

Gwenio;

 

It will work slightly faster, yes...but all those things which you have deleted will be gone if you begin a new game- I really do not recommend it.

[Gwenio]

Gwenio;

 

It will work slightly faster, yes...but all those things which you have deleted will be gone if you begin a new game- I really do not recommend it.

 

I expected it might be like that, but it seemed worth asking.

[Ranielle Limeleaf]

Even though I won't be able to mod for real in the foreseeable future, I still thank you for the opportunity to look into how the magic that is Academagia is made.