Broader Mod Support Coming?

[Habeed]

Logically, instead of the "icon" based gui, there needs to be a GUI with a series of checkboxes and a "host game" button underneath. Mods that are incompatible with each other need to be part of the checkbox rules, so if you check the box for one mod, the incompatible mods grey out.

Also, I'd like a public submission form that describes the format a mod must be in for FAF to manage it automatically, and a way to submit any non-malware mod along with an icon for inclusion. There's at least a dozen major mods not listed in the current GUI.

That way, you could host a blackops Unleashed/Murder party or an Experimental Shields/BlackOps/Phantom or whatever game whenever you wanted. And with FAF's automatic mod download, the frustrations of the current method would be a thing of the past.

[Ze_PilOt]

Featured Mods are not meant to be uploaded / submitted by users.

The main goal is to facilitate the hosting of some popular, while giving the possibility to play online at some mods in .scd form, without breaking anything.

They are carefully chosen, and the list is limited by design. We want people to play them, not to stare at a list of 100 mods they will never try.

[FunkOff]

Logically, instead of the "icon" based gui, there needs to be a GUI with a series of checkboxes and a "host game" button underneath. Mods that are incompatible with each other need to be part of the checkbox rules, so if you check the box for one mod, the incompatible mods grey out.

Also, I'd like a public submission form that describes the format a mod must be in for FAF to manage it automatically, and a way to submit any non-malware mod along with an icon for inclusion. There's at least a dozen major mods not listed in the current GUI.

That way, you could host a blackops Unleashed/Murder party or an Experimental Shields/BlackOps/Phantom or whatever game whenever you wanted. And with FAF's automatic mod download, the frustrations of the current method would be a thing of the past.

There needs to be a qa process, so no user uploads. We approached black ops and they declined to be included. Check boxes would be nice though

[Ze_PilOt]

I would be more than happy to have Blackops as a featured mod, but the dev team kind of ignore me

[Habeed]

There needs to be a qa process, so no user uploads. We approached black ops and they declined to be included. Check boxes would be nice though

I mean that users could submit their mods to be qa'd, and you'd hopefully review the mod reasonably promptly. Kind of like the "app store" for Apple products.

Also, the "featured' mods could be at the top of the list with bigger icons. However, shouldn't you support all the mods the same way, with auto mod download and auto updating? This is what GPGnet needed from day one. No more "get the mods, n00b" and kicking people, and having to wait an hour to get enough players who have the mods to join a blackops game.

The other thing you need, that GPGnet never had, is some kind of actual, no bs, CPU reporting or benchmarking. If you could simply report the make/model/frequency of the CPU in a user's profile, that would work fine. That's feature is a google search away to find the system call to get that string.

An actual benchmark would be nice, but you can find 99% of the laggers simply by checking what CPU they have, at what frequency.

[Ze_PilOt]

We can do almost anything, the problem is the time.

[Habeed]

We can do almost anything, the problem is the time.

Right. Is the system call to retrieve 2 strings (CPU ID, current operating frequency) a 15 minute task or a big project? The only obstacle I can imagine is if the language you are using (Python?) doesn't allow you to make those calls.

The second task though would be to automatically look that CPU up on a benchmark site and report an actual expected performance score. THAT would be kind of complex (you'd have to search the page for the closest match, and then also scale to correct for the performance boost from overclocking. Well, don't search the page in realtime, search a data table scraped from one of the web pages for a CPU score site)

[thygrrr]

I mean that users could submit their mods to be qa'd, and you'd hopefully review the mod reasonably promptly. Kind of like the "app store" for Apple products.

Cool idea, we'll earn billions of dollars that way... no, wait. We won't. But at least we'll triple our profits. Oh. Wait. We don't have any.

The key motivation behind featured mods is to have somewhere between 5 and 10 really cool mods, maybe phasing some out when they become less popular, to showcase the very best that FA and FAF can be. For that, we try to make it as easy and "click, click, play!" as possible to get these mods. That takes special care on the side of the lobby, the server, and the mod maintainers. Offering mods that "simply work" instead of a huge list of mods that "should work" is the key priority here.

Featured mods are carefully selected, the creme de la creme. You can always make suggestions, but chances are, if it's not rock-solid, popular as hell, or truly extraordinary - the mod is not gonna get featured. Your chances are likely to improve if you sponsor a mod with your own development time, because it's not guaranteed that a mod will work with FAF out of the box. It may need tender loving care with each new version of FAF, too. Maintaining mods is hard work (kudos to all those who do!)

That said, there WILL be extended mod support meaning that one day, the lobby will at least be able to list the mods used in a game. But we can't provide downloads for them, at least not easily. A real "mod vault" is a distant dream, also considering how badly the GPG one got cluttered with crappy mods and crappy versioning. Brrrr.

So, it all boils down to: If you have it in you to be a contributor to FAF, by all means, step forward and help us build a feature like this. It's just not a priority seeing how low on time our current team already is.

[Habeed]

I mean that users could submit their mods to be qa'd, and you'd hopefully review the mod reasonably promptly. Kind of like the "app store" for Apple products.

Cool idea, we'll earn billions of dollars that way... no, wait. We won't. But at least we'll triple our profits. Oh. Wait. We don't have any.

The key motivation behind featured mods is to have somewhere between 5 and 10 really cool mods, maybe phasing some out when they become less popular, to showcase the very best that FA and FAF can be. For that, we try to make it as easy and "click, click, play!" as possible to get these mods. That takes special care on the side of the lobby, the server, and the mod maintainers.

Featured mods are carefully selected, the creme de la creme. You can always make suggestions, but chances are, if it's not rock-solid, popular as hell, or truly extraordinary - the mod is not gonna get featured. Your chances are likely to improve if you sponsor a mod with your own development time, because it's not guaranteed that a mod will work with FAF out of the box. It may need tender loving care with each new version of FAF, too. Maintaining mods is hard work (kudos to all those who do!)

That said, there WILL be extended mod support meaning that one day, the lobby will at least be able to list the mods used in a game. But we can't provide downloads for them, at least not easily. A real "mod vault" is a distant dream, also considering how badly the GPG one got cluttered with crappy mods and crappy versioning. Brrrr.

So, it all boils down to: If you have it in you to be a contributor to FAF, by all means, step forward and help us build a feature like this. It's just not a priority seeing how low on time our current team already is.

What are you going on about? I am a programmer by trade, and I can also see when another implementation works.

GPGnet has allowed for auto-mod downloads and installation since Supreme Commander has released. This feature has MOSTLY worked the whole damn time.(it doesn't handle updates to a mod very well because it doesn't delete all the files in a folder before installing updated files) The ONLY thing GPGnet doesn't do is check the mods enabled in a game and force you to download those mods before joining. That is NOT a difficult feature to add!

[Ze_PilOt]

Auto-mod download for GPGNET ? We are not talking of the same things, because GPG doesn't have that at all.

They've got a mod vault, that's true. But that is not a high priority for us. But if you are a developper, you are welcome to help us doing it