questions about devnull mod

[Silent Sorrow]

Originally posted by deccan:
Hmm, considering that the makers of Devnull made the mod for free and you're not paying anything for it, it seems to me that asking them to make a manual to go along with it seems a bit ungrateful. Hey, if you get familiar with the mod, why not write a manual of your own and post it here? I'm sure everyone will appreciate it.

Actually, I see binford has put together a kind of manual that explains the base changes and that helps.

And yes, maybe it SOUNDS ungrateful but I did say it just seems to be good sense. Of course it's fabulous that someone in the community took the time to mke the mod. But honestly, if you're going to go to the trouble of making so many changes, why WOULDN'T you also include some kind of explanation of what has been changed? Otherwise, it's too much of an "in-crowd" thing in which the only people likely to play it are the ones who have lots of time on their hands and can be bothered to sift through it all.

A "manual" (and what I'm talking about here wouldn't be a full manual by any means--just a few notes of explanation like binford has done so I have some context within which to understand what I'm reading in the Version history) isn't really an "extra," in my opinion. It isn't something you forego because you're doing it for free. It's an INTEGRAL part of the game because it allows players to get right to playing the game instead of making figuring the game out an exercise in itself.

(Look at MOO3--not free, I know, but ... Complex game, shipped with a manual, I hear, but one so poor that it contributed incalculably to the game's dismal reception and almost certainly turned away many potential purchasers before they got near the game. Who knows how things might have gone if a proper manual had shipped with it?)

[Arkcon]

Yeah, a little text blurb describing the mod would help, 'tho you said it was there. I never cheked myself, just played it and got toasted by the monsters. Have you seen this web page: web page Click

I found it with a search on google. Or is it the same as what's in the readme in the zip?

[ July 26, 2003, 01:23: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

[Fyron]

Mods do not require any "manuals"... simple readmes suffice...

[Taera]

the deal is, there is a little too many changes there in DevNull to list them all - but on the other hand they're not drastic enough to make it difficult to play. Actually, you can play DNM on PBW and learn in progress. I did that.

[Rollo]

1) Like others have said before. I think Devnull Mod is a good one to learn as you play. The main change is that PDC does also sweep mines. But PDC can only target seekers. If you want PD against units also, you need Anti-fighter missiles (research Point-defense and also fighters tech for higher levels).

2) about the AI: TDM AI will not work correctly in Devnull Mod. The Vikings AI for Devnull as well as all the other AI have been adopted specificly for the mod. And don't use stock AI either. Just use the AI that comes with the mod.

Rollo

[Pax]

Originally posted by Silent Sorrow:
Sigh.

I suppose I could do that.

But I think when you have a mod that is this wide-ranging it's just professional to include the equivalent of a manual.

And when you start paying $10US to the authors of the mod (each and every one; DevNull has changedhands more than once), maybe they will oblige you. Maybe. But I wouldn't hold my breath, were I you.

...

Look, no offense, but ... it's free; don't you think you're being just a BIT ungrateful, here? A mod is a LOT of work in and of itself (as I have discovered the hard way with the STILL-unfinished "Exodus" mod), if you do more than tweak a few minor things here and there. Try it sometime, you'll see what I mean.

There are several reasons why this just makes good sense but for me one is I have a busy life and don't really have the time or the inclination to wade through everything first-hand, searching through this, that and the other thing, staging mock games to figure it out by trial and error, and asking question after question on the forums. The game is already complex enough as it is and I don't think this sort of thing helps attract more players.

And the authors of mods have lives, too. It already takes a lot of work to craft a new mod out of whole cloth (easily into the hundreds of man-hours for th really big ones).

[Silent Sorrow]

Originally posted by Taera:
the deal is, there is a little too many changes there in DevNull to list them all - but on the other hand they're not drastic enough to make it difficult to play. Actually, you can play DNM on PBW and learn in progress. I did that.

See the irony? You say "a little too many changes ... to list them all." That, of course, is the VERY REASON why the mod should also include some sort of explanation of its features.

If it was a mod where superficial and/or few changes had been made, sure, of course there may not be a need for a readme (I'll say "readme" because some people are getting stuck on "manual" and I don't mean a literal manual).

But some of you have got it the wrong way around and appear to be saying that the more changes there are, the less need there is for explanation. And that just doesn't make any sense to me.

As for PBW, I don't have any sort of time to try anything like that so that's not an option for me. I might play a lot for a week or two and then not play again for three months.