262 replies to this topic

[igi]

Announcing your grand opening when said tools and tutorials are ready was too difficult? Having serious content would help people (E.G. me) consider TBG revival not a badly told joke.

You can keep working on something forever - there comes a point when you have to say "enough, let go with what we have". From what I recall, non of the major IE modding sites opened with a ready made set of new tools/tutorials/mods. At least give us a week or two before deciding to complain. If you still feel the same after that time, let us know what we could do to improve things.

So, how is opening a modding community increasing quantity and/or qualities of mods being produced? I'm still missing the point in here. Otherwise, I'd already be off opening an online dating service.

Well, I've not mentionned increasing the quantity or quality of mods. However, I feel a new community will almost definiately increase the quantity of mods (we only need to encourage 1 modder to make a mod to do that). As for quality, it's questionally subjective, but I feel we can contribute as much as other modding sites in this area.

[Kalindor]

Igi, I have gained respect for you in your restraint from resorting to harsh rhetoric in this discussion.

[sirthaddeus]

I've been floating around the modding communities off and on for a few years.

I feel more modding communities will no doubt increase creativity, circulate ideas, and perhaps revive older, very well done mods that seem to have died (DragonlanceTC for example), and provide another place for everyone to communicate with each other.

So everyone calm down, see what comes of the ?TeamBG Revival?!

[jcompton]

Granting--for the moment--that this is not all just an elaborate hoax...

I feel more modding communities will no doubt increase creativity

Competition and diversity can promote greater creativity. But you would be hard pressed to prove that it's linear or even that we're on the upside of the curve any longer. Infinity modding is an inbred pastime--many if not most modders have worked or are working on mods published on multiple sites.

circulate ideas

See above. There is no real barrier to the exchange of ideas currently.

and perhaps revive older, very well done mods that seem to have died (DragonlanceTC for example)

DLTC has had its own community/site for quite some time now and its own procession of would-be saviors. And again, it's a rather inbred one. Studios' own SConrad got himself made a project administrator a while back. Max even stopped in to tease the public a few months ago. Whatever its problems may be, the lack of a website with a TeamBG banner (or the lack of any extra site, period) would not seem to be one of them.

and provide another place for everyone to communicate with each other.

Well, sure. And broadly speaking it's anybody's right to set up a website for whatever it is they'd like to do with it. Can't argue with that.

But whether one site more (or less, really) at this stage makes any difference is pretty debatable. Various factors, including Infinity's inherent limitations, the age of the games, the fact that they're mostly out of print and unavailable, mean that there's not a terribly large pool of people out there just dying for One More Infinity Modding Site to suit them. An excellent example of this equilibrium at work is what's become of Forgotten Wars over the past couple of years. With PPG established, there was no sensible reason to continue to operate the site, so it reverse-merged. Now that I have the domain, there's no particularly compelling reason to try to run it as a separate site now, either (well, except as a tongue-in-cheek historical artifact.) The equilibrium of the scene doesn't demand another site.

Look no further than the vaunted "guys with TeamBG after their names" for further proof and puzzlement... two of them already have boutique modding sites. How will they grandly serve the community from TeamBG.eu in ways they could not from mcwrench or final-exodus, exactly?

However, I'll even go so far as to grant (still on the provision that I'm accepting for the sake of this moment in time that this isn't a gag designed to get a good laugh out of "TeamBG Revival" threads) that if one felt that there was a demand for one more modding site, calling it "TeamBG" makes the most sense. After all, despite the fact that it passed from sight two years ago, and passed from relevance earlier still, lots of Infinity players both casual and devoted do know the name, they still search on it, there are still lots of links and fawning praise for the House That Ken Built to be found. So if one had a really compelling concept that somehow absolutely demanded a new URL (or IP address on port 82, whatever floats your boat), may as well call it TeamBG than anything else, I suppose.

(So, in conclusion--ha, ha, very funny, you guys. You really got us good.)

[igi]

To those who have shown optimism about the TBG revival, thank you - it is appreciated

Competition and diversity can promote greater creativity. But you would be hard pressed to prove that it's linear or even that we're on the upside of the curve any longer. Infinity modding is an inbred pastime--many if not most modders have worked or are working on mods published on multiple sites.

There are still mods being released, some of which are written by first-time modders. Regardless of the fact that thousdands of new modders may or may not flock to a revived TBG, how is TBG's revival a negative thing? You've already stated that most people visit more than one modding site.

DLTC has had its own community/site for quite some time now and its own procession of would-be saviors. And again, it's a rather inbred one. Studios' own SConrad got himself made a project administrator a while back. Max even stopped in to tease the public a few months ago. Whatever its problems may be, the lack of a website with a TeamBG banner (or the lack of any extra site, period) would not seem to be one of them.

DLTC has always been a mod independent of TBG. The lack of progress has many factors (or not so many), and I agree, the lack of TBG is probably not one of them. However, it may be possible that some new activity in the community in general could spur on development - I'm not saying it will, but it may.

Well, sure. And broadly speaking it's anybody's right to set up a website for whatever it is they'd like to do with it. Can't argue with that.

But whether one site more (or less, really) at this stage makes any difference is pretty debatable. Various factors, including Infinity's inherent limitations, the age of the games, the fact that they're mostly out of print and unavailable, mean that there's not a terribly large pool of people out there just dying for One More Infinity Modding Site to suit them. An excellent example of this equilibrium at work is what's become of Forgotten Wars over the past couple of years. With PPG established, there was no sensible reason to continue to operate the site, so it reverse-merged. Now that I have the domain, there's no particularly compelling reason to try to run it as a separate site now, either (well, except as a tongue-in-cheek historical artifact.) The equilibrium of the scene doesn't demand another site.

Whether the 'equilibrium of the scene' demands a revived TBG or not is not the entire point. It's an alternative, an extra choice. People don't have to visit TBG, just like they don't have to visit PPG, G3, SHS or anywhere else. I don't see how the fact that TBG is there to visit is necessarily a bad thing.

Look no further than the vaunted "guys with TeamBG after their names" for further proof and puzzlement... two of them already have boutique modding sites. How will they grandly serve the community from TeamBG.eu in ways they could not from mcwrench or final-exodus, exactly?

Neither Seif's site nor mine are primarily IE modding focused. We tend to do IE work there because there's nowhere else we'd want anything hosted.

I think this thread itself is evidence of the absurd benefits adopting the TeamBG name brings. Delight is thanking igi, what, because of all that new content that's up there? Because he can finally post his IDU bug reports somewhere? No, it's because it's TeamBG--somewhere that has always historically pretended to be significant--which takes precedence over whether the site actually offers anything useful.

As far as I can recall, when any of the major modding sites went live, they had very little new content. The TBG revival is no different (though we do have plans for things, we're just writing up the documentation and making it all pretty). And I think that TBG has been as significant int he IE modding community as any other site, without having to 'pretending' to be so.

On the flipside, of course, had this been any other new modding site, we wouldn't have batted an eyelid, but the very fact that it attempts to gain mileage from the naming makes our amusement all the more vocal.

True, any other new modding site would probably not have received the analysis of its worthiness for existence.


EDIT: Fixed quote tags.

Edited by igi, 17 June 2006 - 03:22 AM.

[Origami Samurai]

As far as I can recall, when any of the major modding sites went live, they had very little new content. The TBG revival is no different (though we do have plans for things, we're just writing up the documentation and making it all pretty).

Which is fine. But when you start from nothing, you work your way up. You don't waltz in and say "right, we're TeamBG, and that automatically makes us really important!" Your FAQ is full of bullshit about how modding started with you and how you plan to ensure it finishes there. This smacks of arrogance for a site which offers next to nothing. If you want to start a new community, that's fine, but don't try playing the "Father of it all" card, because currently you're nothing but an attempt to leech off the once-significance of a defunct site.

It's all about perspective isn't it?  I seem to think that the proud PPG announcement, from their homepage no less is equally 'full of shit.'  

Since August 2001, Pocket Plane Group has worked on enhancements, improvements, hacks and outright abuses of BG2 and other games based on Bioware's engine. We hope you enjoy!

It looks a tad different when compared to this: -

Registrar: DOTSTER
   Domain Name: POCKETPLANE.NET
      Created on: 29-MAR-04
      Expires on: 30-MAR-07
      Last Updated on: 10-MAR-06

If PPG, as an entity historically came into being when some pissed off FWP members took their material and upped sticks, their own foundation had nothing new whatsoever but since then, they've made some quality mods and added to their inventory, then why won't the same benefit of the doubt be extended to TBG.eu?

Course, someone is now going to ride in on a white charger and tell me I'm wrong.

All these complaints about 'lack of originality, adding nothing new etc' are full of crapo.  SHS traded off FWS old stuff and evolved nicely from there, PPG does a damn good whoring itself out as a replacement for FWP with extra bells & whistles attached, whilst G3 nicely catches anything that isn't picked up by those two.

Where were the objections to leeching then?

[Delight]

I think that the fall of TBG was something that started the detoriation of modding scene.
TBG was a heart of IE modding and was an unique community.
There's no other modding community that is focused solely on modding.

SHS tried to become such community, but it's not and never was like TBG.
We need TBG to keep modding alive, because it was a heart of whole modding.
It was a symbol. When TBG died, part of me died tied too .

[jcompton]

how is TBG's revival a negative thing? You've already stated that most people visit more than one modding site.

I'm of the opinion that it's intentionally funny, not unintentionally negative.

DLTC has always been a mod independent of TBG.

Not strictly true, it was originally attached to TBG. But yes, its (long-standing) independence was in fact my point--it didn't particularly need there to be a site called TeamBG before and it doesn't now. But then, you probably knew that and just wanted to see if I'd bother correcting you. Well played once again!

All these complaints about 'lack of originality, adding nothing new etc' are full of crapo. SHS traded off FWS old stuff and evolved nicely from there, PPG does a damn good whoring itself out as a replacement for FWP with extra bells & whistles attached, whilst G3 nicely catches anything that isn't picked up by those two.

Where were the objections to leeching then?

Your indigance is further disrupting what should have been a delightful jape for everybody. But, as you are samurai and we are but peasants, I guess you expect and deserve the reminder that there was in fact all sorts of indignance and shouting over the PPG thing. There have even been occasional pockets of angst over the transformations Studios has been put through. (And I tried to raise public awareness of the brutal G3/camagna.net takeover, but nobody got on that bandwagon. It was the Iron Modder 9 of scene humor.)

[Baronius]

I read the most of this thread, but eventually omitted the last 5-6 posts because simply the whole stuff has become boring.
First of all, repeating something again:

Oh, yes, reviving the use of IDU and IAP. Must've overlooked the advantages of that.

I'm quite sure that a modder aware of the current technical possibilities and ways of mod distribution will choose WeiDU (currently the best tool on this purpose) whether IAP/IDU or whatever is advertised or not. But this is not the main problem. Certain people criticize old tools (no, it is not critics, they talk about them as a bunch of c**p), exactly the people who know jack about programming. Learn to respect the older generations.

But having that stuff actually available to a kid who could not run WeiDU after 3 minutes of trying and decided to go for something else without understanding the consequences! can do some serious damage.

The kid can ask for help from others. If he makes his installer in IAP/TBG format, it can still be converted to WeiDU later. By the way, your words also pay the attention to a problem of WeiDU which is "user-unfriendliness". Tutorials are nice, reassuring starter modders that it's not hard to learn is good and needed, but no one will make me believe that most people, especially beginners, prefer a console interface to shiny GUI. If a tool were released which offers exactly the same as WeiDU but with a GUI, it would probably become the top distribution tool: and then would you talk about WeiDU as the "old black cr*p"? This is not an acceptable attitude.

General advice to everyone, including TheBigg: let the new TeamBG founders prove what they promise. Give them a chance. Give them time. Don't judge immediately.

Edited by Baronius, 17 June 2006 - 11:20 AM.

[Andyr]

I think that the fall of TBG was something that started the detoriation of modding scene.
TBG was a heart of IE modding and was an unique community.
There's no other modding community that is focused solely on modding.

I don't really agree with this. I don't see that any of the modding communities are focussed on anything but modding (aside from the game discussion forums here).

[NiGHTMARE]

Besides, I'd say places like G3 are far more modding orientated than the old TeamBG ever was.

[Baronius]

Baronius, on your own forum, you just hosted a non-WeiDU mod. What was the result? That the only question people were asking was "When it's going be converted to WeiDU?" The author had achieved therefore no more than a false release.

The result is cca. 130 downloads, and we received some positive feedback from Drizzt fans as well -- this was the primary reason of the author, to make an enjoyable mod for Drizzt fans. So he did achieve his goal, and now his next goal is learning WeiDU and making a weidu installer for the mod.

WeiDU has one advantage over the TeamBG tools. It works. Making available the broken software and saying that it's not broken is imo irresponsible.

This is what I was talking about: respect. "the TeamBG tools" -- TeamBG had lots of tools, and most of them did work. And no, not all of these had huge bugs. Calling all of "the TeamBG tools" broken software is both disrespectful and false.

The "userfriendliness" comes with a tag of incompatibility and doing the double work of conversion, let alone direct damage to installation and TBG mods horrible habit of snaking their way into the start menue.

If the installation guidelines are complied with, no TBG mods will damage the install. Just more disk space (for backups and such) but today it's not really a problem. It's another matter that it's much more complicated than WeiDU installations, that is why WeiDU is preferred in this respect (as well).

As igi said, those certain tools are marked with red text. I'm not sure if you're familiar with mod creation / programming or not (if you would choose not to post as anonym, it might be easier for me, and others as well, to communicate with you), but the "only download it if you have a specific reason." part of the red text means something important. No, not a modder who "would want to use an old tool because it's simple". Because sometimes they may be needed, perhaps by a more experienced modder or such. This is why it's good that they are available. (For example, I was developing a part of the Grey Clan mod on an older PC, and for a certain reason I want detail here, DLTCEP's BG1 setup couldn't find weidu in its correctly given location => I used Infinity Engine Script Editor, and it worked perfectly. Only very few scripts had to be processed via WeiDU command line. In the present I usually use DBAFMC though, but that time, it wasn't available yet.)

Besides, I'd say places like G3 are far more modding orientated than the old TeamBG ever was.

This is certainly not true. Just because it has lots of small projects, so a large quantity of mods, it doesn't mean it would be more modding-oriented than TBG was. G3 focuses on two types of things mainly. The small tweak-fix-pack stuffs (which are very popular, and I don't doubt that mod makers at G3 do it very well), and some bigger projects. And IESDP, but that is because igi decided to host it there -- it doesn't mean that the research is done by G3: it is only supported by it, and the whole community contributes, obviously. The "old" TeamBG had tools (yes, the first tools, plus DLTCEP and IETME were also TBG tools, never forget), made contests, made a banner rotation, supported mod making discussion on chat, had IESDP, brought the community together. And which is the most important: it dealt with interesting projects, with challenging projects, and long projects. Except a few mods (e.g. made by Sim), nowadays the aforementioned G3 or e.g. PPG doesn't really have any special stuff: the popular (and undoubtedly professionally made) NPC and tweak stuff (which don't need too much time to be developed compared to the longer projects). And mainly focused on BG2 and Tutu. To avoid misunderstanding, I am not trying to imply that these sites would be worse than TBG (or any other site) or that their mods wouldn't be as good -- in fact, they are usually professionally made works which work seamlessly. Their portfolio is just different than e.g. TBG's was (or BWL's). To sum up, it's the biggest joke in my opinion to say that G3 is more focused on modding than TBG was. In fact, it's a bad idea in advance to compare TBG with anything.

Edited by Baronius, 18 June 2006 - 08:30 AM.

[NiGHTMARE]

When most people say things such as "G3" or "TeamBG", they are referring to the site and forums as a whole, not just the members of staff and the software or mods they've created.

However, even if we were to go by your definition, half the things you listed at TeamBG have to be discounted as "part of TeamBG" for precisely the same reasons you've discounted them as part of recent forums. In other words, if IESDP isn't "done by G3", then it wasn't "done by TeamBG", either (it wasn't even hosted at the TeamBG site, IIRC). Remember too that a good portion of the "TeamBG" tools were made by people who weren't actually members of staff (though they may have gone on to become members of staff after they created the tool).

While TeamBG might have indeed "brought the community together", for the most part this was to discuss things that weren't actually releated to modding, rather than working together to create mods, or even simply discussing mods. Surely you remember how chock full of off-topicness TeamBG was? Even the forums for certain hosted mods had more off-topic posts than they did ones which were actually relevant to the mod in question; the TDD forum was especially bad for this, as I recall.

As for contests, banners, mod discussion on chat, all of those things are present in modern day forums; PPG in particular has all three.

Also, while certain staffmembers at TeamBG did (and in some cases still do) dedicate much of their time and efforts towards developing and supporting tools and mods, there were many who preferred to spend the majority of their time doing other, rather less helpful things. This included discussing bans, arguing about bans, threatening to ban people, and of course banning people. Shouting at and being rude towards anyone who dared to bring up any subject or a question that had already been raised in a previous thread seemed to be popular past time amongst certain TeamBG staffmembers, too.

Anyway, while there's obviously a great deal of animosity between the staff of certain current IE boards, I think most staff at the modern day IE boards would agree that most of us spend far more time modding, discussing mods, answering technical questions (from both modders and players), etc than the typical old TeamBG staffmember (though as I said, there were several exceptions to the typical "TBG 'tude").

Edited by NiGHTMARE, 18 June 2006 - 10:02 AM.

[igi]

I'm sorry I've not posted for almost a day - I seem to be in the middle of the "modders curse" (aka. a HDD crash). However, absolutely nothing has been lost (besides a little time), so, straight to the posts.

There are safe and useful tools for a new modder from TeamBG's old stuff (for example IEEP). The others howevere are prone to cause horrendous problems, like mod incompatibility, unable to unisntall the mod save for deleting the game (IAP, my personal *worst* experience with modding!).
So, my suggestion is to sort through the applications and has only the ones that are simple, useful and bug-free as PD (ie IEEP, music converter, BAM workshop). If people would like to use legacy tools, and especially the mod distributors that actually *ensure the INCOMPATIBILITY*, and know what they are doing, there is no harm in them contacting the admin and directed to private links. There is also no harm in making a historical section that describes those tools and the development of TeamBG and all that if you wish to preserve the former glory. But having that stuff actually available to a kid who could not run WeiDU after 3 minutes of trying and decided to go for something else without understanding the consequences! can do some serious damage.

Well, I feel the 'bright red warning text' is pretty clear, but I appreciate that others may not feel so. I'm not sure about the PM-to-get-a-DL-link idea, but if there's a demand we could implement some other system (perhaps a separate legacy tool section?).

WeiDU has one advantage over the TeamBG tools. It works. Making available the broken software and saying that it's not broken is imo irresponsible.

Well, to be fair, WeiDU works (up to a point). The same can be said of several of the TBG tools - they work (up to a point). As I've already stated, the red 'do not download' text is intedend to be stop mis-use of the tools marked with it, an dis used for several reasons (the software is 'broken', has been surpassed, or is simply not surported).

This is not user ignorance. This is user-savviness. It had been accepted that compatible, safe and easy-to-use mods are done in WeiDU. There is a chance that a newbie modder would want to use an old tool because it's simpler. There is little to no chance that short of a desperate player who really-really wants a particular mod would chose to play it. And with the shrinking of IE modding community, and the competition we will be getting from the new commercial games we are not likely to see many people desperate to play, that they will be willing to fry their installation or play one mod at a time. The "userfriendliness" comes with a tag of incompatibility and doing the double work of conversion, let alone direct damage to installation and TBG mods horrible habit of snaking their way into the start menue.

It's just as easy to make incompatable mods in WeiDU as it is with any other distribution tool. The key lies in educating the modder (and the player) as to how to use the tools available, and what to expect from them.

Again, promote that which works and is safe - and vivat to that! But please, unless and until updated to ensure the compliance with the current modding standard, do not promote the historic legacy tools as working implements. Write their history. Make articles about them and the creators. Make them avbailable for those who are interested in research and development. They belong to history, not to present day. Allow them to retire graciously.

This is pretty much what we are doing. We're not promoting IDU/IDW/IAP - they are all marked as legacy (and are available for those interested in R&D).

[ronin]

This is getting freaking rediculous!! If someone wants to open another mod site or something similiar then I think the community should support them.

If you dont have anything decent to say then quit freaking posting.

More power to you Igi dont let the bastards get ya down.

ronin