Be bored. Or mad at Dauss, TLB, and Grif

One of you guys said something about tentacles?

Okay, let me be serious for a moment.


What we have is ModName.rte, as a FOLDER

Blizzard has Whatever.MPQ
Valve has whatever.GCF

Those are compressed files, which require special software to open, and adding password protection to it, would not be bad.


Imagine .rte being, not a Folder, but a COMPRESSED File format, One that's encrypted, and password protected. For images, data could have a custom format, that is not .bmp, that could ONLY handle palleted colors, OR use indexed colors that get converted into pallet by index. .ini's could become non-simple-text files, that simply contain simple text.

The game would load the non simple text, non .bmp images, etc, on start-up, and read them.

The .rte contains BOTH compiled, and uncompiled files, and ONLY extracts the compiled ones on start-up, and then when you exit the game, it would delete the extracted files. Because the extracted files are protected, and not arbitrary, you can't edit those, but if you have the password for the .rte, you could get the NON-Compiled versions of said files.

Thats basically exactly what valve does.

GCF files, can be opened with a special program (GCF Edit), and contains viewable, Editable files. When you run a game, it Extracts the contents of the .gcf files, to a specified folder within the game, in a different format which the game can quickly read. When you exit the game, it deletes those files, leaving only the GCF, with its contents.



I really do think this is a good idea, for 2 reasons.
1) it prevents people from stealing your mods, or copying and doing minor edits of them.
2) it makes it feel more professional, and gets people used to the idea of Compiling files.

Between compiling files, using lua, and dealing with preset, limited pallets, mod-making for CC very quickly becomes BASIC training for becoming game/content developers. Sure it's not programing training on that level, but it does teach people the concepts of how it works, etc, etc.



I seriously do think thats a good thing, I'm not trolling or making an april fools joke (its the 2nd now anyway), I'm actually serious, that is something I would actually like to see.

1 - Why is this a good thing? I will be the first to admit that probably eighty percent of the code I write, .ini or .lua, is copied from somewhere. Discourage fair use and you encourage the kind of bull♥♥♥♥ power plays that drive people insane.

2 - Why do we need to feel more professional? The majority of the users of this forum are well under legal adults; perhaps we could just enjoy modding the game, for what it is, rather than try to force people into using an unnecessarily complicated system for no reason whatsoever.

1) core files in game would be open to copy and edit, IE unprotected, and for copying code, ask the creator, which is what you should do anyway.

2 - Right click - compile. That's not a complicated step, at most it would be like rar-ing it an extra time.

2b - as for feel more professional, think about the first time you wear a full suit. The first well created mod. That feeling when you print out a form, and seal it in an envelope. It's more satisfying. it boosts confidence. More confidence, makes you try more things, harder things, and encourages people to advance, and get better.

Miles. You are being trolled. Just drop it and leave it alone.

Do people like doing that envelope thing more than once when they're new to it?
No.
It incurs anxiety and fear, something we don't need more of when new modders are confronted by such an array of variables and untaught tricks already.

This better not turn into another argument here, I will be a sad panda

I know the thread's a troll thread, but I do like that particular idea. I seriously don't understand why that one thing is a bad idea. as for grif trolling, well, he's grif, I know, some people are just gullible enough to believe nearly everything that falls out of his face.

@ 411570n3

Anxiety and fear? from sealing an envelope? I've never heard of that, maybe if your filing taxes or something, I honestly love it.

and @duh, i'm not arguing, or at least not intending to. but people are acting like what im saying is 'omg turn the world upside down come on!'. I really don't get why people are like that. I mean, I know its probably never going to happen, because it would require so much work, or even money, but...

Yeah, i'll just drop it at this point.

A printed form and a sealed envelope generally incurs a level of anxiety, yes. You seem to forget the age range of a good deal of the forums.

not receiving printed forms, but printing them out yourself, to send to other people. but... anyway...

Compiling mods would make the load process longer.
Compiling mods would make mod testing a pain, unless there was some way of loading two types of mods, which would make the load precess even longer.
Compiling mods would make it difficult for people to learn from other mods.
Compiling mods is not going to make anyone try harder, it's just going to discourage new modders from making anything at all.
For these reasons, it ain't gonna happen.

OK, april 2nd is here, lock this thread before the flames start creeping anywhere else.

Preemptive locking, I like that idea. Cheers everybody, hope you had fun with my little prank ^^

Is what Duh said about the proper collisions a lie as well? You can lock this thread as soon as I get a definitive answer.God, I feel like a noob.

Could have just PM'd me, but yes all of what I posted in that thread was just stuff I got off the top of my head (with the exception of part of the campaign screen stuff being turn based).