Garrulous Glaahk Genernumlover Posted May 5 Share Posted May 5 How do you make mods for the new Geneforge? I've seen people making mods since the original games but I don't know how to do it myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Genernumlover Posted May 5 Author Share Posted May 5 How do you make mods for Geneforge? I've seen a lot of quality mods, but I don't know much about how to do it myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall alhoon Posted May 5 Share Posted May 5 The game scripts for the zones and some NPCs and other things are written in txt. It is a script similar to C computer language. To modify simple things, it is very easy and if you open the GF2itemschars.txt for example, many things are self-explained. I.e. if you change the Rotdhizon's " cr_base_health = 100; " to "cr_base_health = 200;" Rotdhizons would have +100 health. For things like changing a zone, you need a hex editor and to figure out where goes what. We have figured that out for GF4-5 but not for the remakes. It takes some patience and requires understanding of how code works. If you have more specific creations, we could try to help. Genernumlover 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Genernumlover Posted May 5 Author Share Posted May 5 Thank you. Just to clarify a couple of things: Vogel is fine with this? Some companies get upset about unauthorized mods. I don't want to break his trademark or license. Can you create new zones and characters? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice ex post slarto Posted May 5 Share Posted May 5 He hasn't explicitly said it's OK, but he's said positive things about one or two mods over the years, so it seems like it's safely condoned -- so long as it doesn't cause headaches for him. That's why we go to such great lengths to put warnings on things, and why we don't encourage everyone to just script edit all over the place. It's fairly easy to screw up something else in the game that you don't realize your edit will even impact. Genernumlover 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk earanhart Posted May 6 Share Posted May 6 most of it is fairly simply text editing. For your first couple attempts, I'd stick with just doing dialog changes so you can get a feel for the process before trying to change other stuff. In the data folders of the game, nearly everything that isn't the engine itself is handled by unencrypted, unprotected text, in one of the simplest coding languages I've ever seen. Spiderweb Software games are probably one of the best games to learn modding on in general, honestly. the files you will likely want to start with are the zone files (names start with the letter z), and specifically the dialog files (such as z4cragsdlg.txt, the file for dialog in zone 4: crags). As always, back up before you mess with things. And typically it's inadvisable to change a zone your save is in or the very first zone of a game. Have fun, and don't forget your rubber duck. Genernumlover 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Genernumlover Posted May 9 Author Share Posted May 9 (edited) Thanks everybody. Without Vogel's okay I don't think I will do any modding. I may email him and ask for it, should I decide that I really want to create a Geneforge mod. But I won't do any modding without the owner giving permission. I don't want to get risk irritating the guy who makes the games I like, and I don't want to risk getting into any copyright trouble by modding his game without his approval. Thank you for the information! Edited May 9 by Genernumlover ultra112, Hyperion703 and alhoon 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk earanhart Posted May 9 Share Posted May 9 Based in where Spiderweb Software is legally registered, the three big rules for nodding are 1) you cannot make money off of the mod 2) you mod cannot risk allowing unpaid access to game content (don't steal from Jeff Vogel) And 3) your mod must require access to a legally obtained copy of the base program Keep inside those, and any disagreements will be VERY in the weeds. Some major companies will send C&Ds and harass modmakers with lawyers based on particular phrasing in the EULAs, but assuming you stop after that C&D you aren't in trouble for anything if you followed the first 3 rules. Now, that's the LEGAL, side, and this is not legal advice. The moral and ethical side of this debate, as well as staying in Jeff's good graces, are an entirely different matter and a whole different set of arguments. Genernumlover and Hyperion703 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall alhoon Posted May 9 Share Posted May 9 What company sends C&D to modders? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk Genernumlover Posted May 9 Author Share Posted May 9 (edited) 13 minutes ago, earanhart said: Based in where Spiderweb Software is legally registered, the three big rules for nodding are 1) you cannot make money off of the mod 2) you mod cannot risk allowing unpaid access to game content (don't steal from Jeff Vogel) And 3) your mod must require access to a legally obtained copy of the base program Keep inside those, and any disagreements will be VERY in the weeds. Some major companies will send C&Ds and harass modmakers with lawyers based on particular phrasing in the EULAs, but assuming you stop after that C&D you aren't in trouble for anything if you followed the first 3 rules. Now, that's the LEGAL, side, and this is not legal advice. The moral and ethical side of this debate, as well as staying in Jeff's good graces, are an entirely different matter and a whole different set of arguments. That's good to know. I think I'll still send an email and get his permission should I decide to give modding a try. Even if it is acceptable to mod the game right now, I don't want to annoy Vogel, and getting his permission would completely end any remaining issues with copyright. Edited May 9 by Genernumlover Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk earanhart Posted May 9 Share Posted May 9 18 minutes ago, alhoon said: What company sends C&D to modders? Bethesda. Bioware. Hasbro. Nintendo. Sony. Google. Amazon. All have stomped on different mod projects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall alhoon Posted May 9 Share Posted May 9 Bethesda?! Bethesda releases modding tools with their games. Bioware's Dragon age have entire new campaigns made for it by modders. So, it must have been something specific. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk earanhart Posted May 9 Share Posted May 9 The project I'm thinking of was one of the earlier iterations of the whole Morroblivion project. Yeah, that one wasn't a "We hate mods" thing so much as it was "this particular project". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall alhoon Posted May 9 Share Posted May 9 2 hours ago, earanhart said: The project I'm thinking of was one of the earlier iterations of the whole Morroblivion project. Yeah, that one wasn't a "We hate mods" thing so much as it was "this particular project". WHat you describe seems to run afoul of #3. If someone was remaking Morrowind, story and all in Oblivion's engine then it is not original work, it is pushing as a mod a previous game. I.e. while Jeff is probably fine with Genernumlover making alterations here and there on the text etc, I doubt he would be OK if he recreated GF1-M using GF2-I mechanics. Genernumlover 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk earanhart Posted May 9 Share Posted May 9 IIRC, it was just a few months before the Steam and GoG versions of Morrowind were released. The project did find a way to continue. I don't know if that was by ignoring the C&D or by changing something specific in how they operated. I barely pay attention to the entire genre of mods that are "old game in newer games engine". Not saying those are bad mods, they're really ambitious projects and impressive, just not what I personally want. I just remember this one because it started a few flame wars in the TES wiki. Nintendo sending the D&C to the guy who was making a series of grayscale mods for the Mario games was more stupid. But that might have been about emulation and/or ROMhacking than modding. But even these forums have had some issues. People "accidentally" registering their copies of Exile . . . That would already be covered in the main 3 categories though. alhoon 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatchling Cockatrice ex post slarto Posted May 9 Share Posted May 9 "newer games in older game engine" is really what we need more of Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Well-Actually War Trall alhoon Posted May 9 Share Posted May 9 (edited) 15 minutes ago, earanhart said: I barely pay attention to the entire genre of mods that are "old game in newer games engine". 8 minutes ago, Slariton said: "newer games in older game engine" is really what we need more of You guys realize this is a remaster forum, right? A remake of the original game in a newer engine, right? 😄 Edited May 9 by alhoon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garrulous Glaahk earanhart Posted May 9 Share Posted May 9 (edited) 37 minutes ago, alhoon said: You guys realize this is a remaster forum, right? A remake of the original game in a newer engine, right? 😄 You realize there's a fundamental difference between remasters, remakes (what this forum is for, regardless of what the title bar says), and squishing one game into another? What I'm talking about is trying to run Doom in the Mass Effect engine, or original Geneforge in the Avernum6 engine. Start is talking about what are sometimes called demakes or downscales, which would be running Mass Effect in Doom (which would actually be pretty cool) or A6 in BoE. Edited May 9 by earanhart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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