Bug during modding

[Shadowcat]

Weird Worlds isn't using the Unreal Engine, and "mod" means nothing more than "modification". Weird Worlds can be modified (and significantly so in many ways), and therefore it is in no way incorrect to label the game as moddable.

Would it have been great if the game logic was implemented and exposed in a fully-featured scripting language? Of course. But just because the system is limited doesn't mean the label is wrong.

[Fingers]

You're free to make your own game just like Weird Worlds if you'd like. Just don't infringe on any of our copyrights and so forth. But it took me a year and a half to program this game, and I know that if I were to program it in a way that avoids any hard-coded numbers it'd take that much longer. It's easy to say "would, should, could" but it's much harder to actually "do". How long can you go on a project that you aren't being paid for?

FYI I've been making mods and games since the 1980's. I know the limitations of FPS engines too, and they're based on the core gameplay of FPS games (it just happens I make FPS games for a living). Player bounding boxes are always oriented a certain way, level sizes are limited to a cubic mile or whatever, there's probably a hard limit of 1024 entities that can exist in the world and so on. That's why mods for FPS games are generally FPS themselves, and don't fundamentally change the gameplay. (I made a vehicle-based mod for Quake and it was a pain in the neck...)

[Puke]

wierd worlds is pretty mod friendly, but it could be more so. but ALL games could be more mod friendly - its a vicious circle.

there has to be some limit, wither its 20 or 256 or INT or signed-long-interger. I imagine that its partly an interface limitation, as well as a gameplay one. when Infinite Space 3 comes out, maybe some of the hard coded limitations that modders bumped into will be adjusted for more flexability. but then people will hit other limits, and request features to be patched in, or adjustments for Infinite Space 4.

Its just the way of things.

But while im on this thread, is that 20 a per-ship limit, or a per-flotillia limit?

[Fingers]

20 is "per inventory", it applies to flotillas and star systems. The flotilla's max is defined by the ship with the largest cargo bay, so no ship should have it set higher than 20.

The number really is an interface thing as you guessed. The player cargo interface happens to be wide enough for 4 items, and the star/planet window is 5. The limit of 20 prevents running out of space with visible empty space in the window. =)

[Pfhoenix]

1) The game genre doesn't define moddability - the ability for a game to have its gameplay *mechanics* significantly altered does.

2) Now that you've cleared up where the magic number 20 comes from, would it be possible to allow more cargo than that, and have a little up and down arrow in the cargo view for scrolling through? If not, then perhaps simply not allowing that 21st item to be attempted to be placed into cargo, as opposed to crashing the game, would be in order.

In response to Puke - magic numbers are wrong. If there's a good reason for a number limit, then that number limit ceases to be a magic number. There is a fundamental difference between "Well, the player just shouldn't ever have more than 3 apples, so let's hard-code an array of 3 for apple storage" and "Well, our interface only comfortably displays 20 cargo at a time, so that's our effective limit on ship cargo capacity". That being said, WW doesn't check for valid range numbers when loading ship properties, and WW also doesn't bounds check when attempting to put something into storage. Hence, el-crasho.

Fingers - I applaud the effort you put into WW. Honestly, really, and truly. I know what it's like working without pay with the prospect of future gain, and I know all about milestones, having to push things out the door, etc. That you guys not only got your project out, but done the way you wanted, is extremely commendable. I will continue to play WW, as it is still fun finding all the different random combinations of cargo items and events they affect.

[Fingers]

You're missing the point of (1). I know of very few games that allow their "gameplay mechanics" to be changed in mods, and even fewer mods that significantly change them even if they could. Half-Life Rally is the last one I can remember. For example, by your definition Doom wasn't a moddable game which is obviously false.

As for (2), it's up to the modder to test their mod and make sure it doesn't crash. I help the modders by answering their questions, such as by telling you the maximum cargo hold size is 20; and by updating the modmakers' guide if I ever have time. I am also working on better error reporting, but while residing on the prime material plane with its linear time continuum it's just not possible to catch every way a modder can crash the game.

[Zogu]

Agreed!

I have no problem with magic numbers; I've modded A LOT in Doom a few years ago (I've created a dozen nice multiplayer WADs), and there were a lot of people complaining about the fact you could define only 3 keys / locked door "colors" per level. So what? I've never found this fact limiting -- modding is about making the best of what you have, within the predefined boundaries.

And magic numbers are everywhere. Without magic numbers, people would ALWAYS try to reach the physical limit and make stupid mods/levels. For instance, in Doom, there were no limitation on the level's vertical size... except that if you reached the INT limit, the game crashed. So guess what, a lot of people created maps in which were exactly 32767 units in height. Despite the fact that it broke texture mapping and slowed the game down considerably. Why so? Because it was the limit.

Since people will always always push to the limit just for fun ("oh I'll make a ship with a gazillion weapons slot, this is SO cool"), we'd better push the limit down to decent values. 20 looks good.

[Puke]

Fingers said:it's just not possible to catch every way a modder can crash the game.

and how! man, i cant even keep track of all the ways that i personally crash the games i try to make screwed up mods for. i wouldnt want to try to fathom all the screwed up things an entire international user base attempts to do!