Many mods but too less developers?

[Asgorath]

Hi everyone,
since the end of 2010 I am member of this forum. And the last 5 month I noticed that there are a lot of mods and new designs for units.
At the same time the "main developers" of Warzone2100 don´t have enough manpower to handle all the bugs and improvements that are planned.

My first question is:
Wouldn´t it be much better to support the official Warzone-Team and help to make Warzone being a better game? And when all of the bugs are erased and there really is a stable version you can restart creating mods and stuff like that. For then it would be much easier to develop mods as well because you don´t have to adjust them every time a new version of the main game is released.
So this is like a question and an appeal at the same time.

My second question is:
There are a lot of new designs for almost everything in the game. From new unit designs to new buildings graphic art up to improved street graphics I have seen a lot of great new designs/arts.
Is that ever finding it´s way into the main game? What if there are different graphics for the same object?
Would be sad if all the great work never helps to improve the main game.

Thank you in advance,
Asgorath

[Jorzi]

Unfortunately this is the main problem with open source in general, inefficiency because of uncoordinated efforts...
Another problem is, very few of us know how to write decent code etc... I agree fully about the need to support our developers, rather than think that the developers should support our own ideas/requests/mods, but I'm not sure what would be the best way to help...
One thing that would be good to emphasize is that the developers in this community are not "they", but a part of "we", something which new inexperienced users sometimes don't recognize, being used to the traditional game company development model.

Much effort is also lost on promising projects being abandoned, something we can't really blame anyone for since everyone here is a volunteer.

[Per]

For the most part, people have to do what they think is fun, otherwise this project is not sustainable. Usually that means doing and improving what you are already good that. If I tried to make 3D models or textures, people would run away screaming. I don't think I have any particular talents in regards to map making, either. So it is good that there are people who are good at these things, and find them fun. Eventually all these things will more or less come together, like a rising tide that lifts all the boats people are building. Maybe not all the boats will be sea worthy, but that is just how things go, and we learn just as much from failures as from our successes.

[Iluvalar]

Too many mods ? I dont think so. You have to make a distinction between what i call "soft" mods and more elaborated mods. Big huge mod like my new CTT (cooler tech tree) take much time. Maybe you tried that mod recently were you can design scavengers. But i believe i'm working on the futur of the game. I'm exploring a way to rebuild the tech tree automaticly whatever the stats of the weapons you want to add/subtract/modify in the game. In a way the game still fun and competitive.

On the other end there is lot of "soft" mods that I also did recently. I believe I'm about the only one to do them. From that point of view there is no "too many modders" there is just one active actually. As Per say, I'm just starting to get good at THAT. I know the relevant source code for mods and i know how stats files are managed. And I'm starting to get a lot of php script that help me edit such "'soft" mods rapidly. You will see a list of my mods here : viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7528. Every time I have a new idea of something that is both simple to do and might be enjoyable, I do it and I make peoples try.

Same thing here... as Per says : some ideas happens to be good, and players ask for more games in that mod, some others are fail and, I dont really care. I'm not a reckless zombie that throws mods everywhere, well not _just_ a zombie that throws mods everywhere, I'm also talking with the "real" developpers. I stumble on real bugs and sometimes suggest real fixes. Some of my experiments will lead to new improvements of the game.

So no no no, i'll talk for all those players that are asking me again and again to rehost one of my funny mods, there is not enough of those mods ! We want more !!1!!!111!oneone

Edit:
One of the simplest exemple of that is our mere experience of mods. Zarel's fix for those map/mod is not even released yet and we already know what is coming... people already ask for new buttons to show mods much like novtol and noborg button (maybe even a text description of both map and mod (please Mr. the devs ) ).

[NoQ]

One of the problem with mods is that they die out too quickly unless they are maintained well enough to be supported by the recent version. Most of the mods around are already dead, unless somebody fixes them, which will reincarnate them for around two more minor versions.

[JDW]

Maybe if the game got more popular, we would see more devs joining the project. Maybe what we need is more review articles on gaming websites. And this should be entirely the community's job.