MODDERS, please.......

[Strec]

I have, and I don't think I'm the only one, with mods on CK2, after trying a lot of mods from here, Steam or other source. 

 

When I right click on the main char, or any NPC by extension, I have a menu with :

 - some dozen entries with the label 'kidnap'
 - some dozen entries with the label 'enslave'
 - some dozen entries with the label 'train'
 - some dozen entries with the label 'have sex'
 - some dozen entries with the label 'breed'
 - and so on, I hope you did catch the idea…

Why? Because every mod have many features and, mainly, any player will love this one in a mod, this one in an other mod, one else in a third mod, and so on… BUT to have all the features we love there is no choice but to have all the mods active.

So PLEASE, modders, make features optionals or create modular mods so player can really choose the features he wants from each mod and avoid conflicts.

Evidently this post have no interest for any modder thinking I'm the only one having the light and the others make shit but I don't think, or I hope, the all modders have these mentality, but I'm old school and perhaps I did not see the things changed.

Evidently too, it may need some work and communication (I hope it is not an insult) but the result would be great for players and, from experience, remember that modding without having players using the mod remains forever some sort of intellectual masturbation, Nothing else ^^

So what to do : decide some lot of base features. I mainly see :

 - kidnapping

 - enslaving/branding

 - training

 - having sex/breeding

 

and make each lot optional.

 

The first thing needed is to have a Framework with basic sharable traits indicating the current status of a NPC (branded slave, in-training, trained) ideally having function call permitting to change the traits withouts a direct access (it will avoid some NPC beeing in-training and trained at the same time). As I seen Cheri started some sort of work like that, could be a good idea to continue that and expand it.

 

After that, modify your mods to use this Library,  make features optional and recolt players congratulations

 

M2p
 

 

 

 

 

[babanathie]

Well... I don't mind intellectual masturbation.  I'm a programmer without the desire to program right now...  So, modding gives me a way of flexing my brain muscles without needing to go too far down the programming tree...

 

I don't know if your suggestion is the greatest though...  For example, I use the CHF as my framework (kind of the way you describe)...  I, personally, don't like to reinvent the wheel.; which is why I went out and found a framework that works for me.  I didn't use any of the slavery mods on LL as a framework for many, many reasons.  That's the problem with frameworks; it's gotta be pretty robust, pretty open-ended or capable of supporting many different kinds of starting assumptions and desires.  LL, despite having some really good slavery mods, just didn't have anything that fit my desires. 

 

My opinion...  This particular post will do more convince people to not pick up modding, which to me isn't too hard with any light programming experience, than it will help "standardize" the modding community.  I just don't think learning a "semi-required" framework and learning about the absolutely required Paradox engine to start modding is going to be conductive to getting more modders to contribute to the community.  Couple that with ego...  I hate to say it, but you gotta have a little bit of an ego to willing put something out there for everyone in the world to critique!  I don't know if this is productive.  With CK3 coming out, I would rather see more people trying out modding with CK2.  Because, CK3 will use a more updated version of the Paradox engine.  Will modding the two game be different?  Yes, but getting experience now, with an older version of the same engine, should make picking up modding for another game easier.  As a player, I would rather have more options out there to tailor my game to my preferences than fewer options. 

 

On the flip side, I know that it sucks when two mods overlap (and you decide to use them both), and I think some mods should have a "Game Rules" section for disabling some content.  For example, I don't think a mod like KSV, IST or KISS (which is my mod) should have as many options to disable content.  Some, sure.  But, those mods are purely slavery oriented mods and disabling certain portions (especially things like "enslave") will make the mod irrelevant.  Focused mods have less leeway what it can and should disable.  KSV, IST and KiSS are focused on slavery and just emphasize different aspects. However, a mod like the ones derived from Dark World...  Well...  Those aren't necessarily slavery oriented and those should give an option to disable certain content, like slavery, in favor of a module that is dedicated to that content, like a slavery mod...

 

 I know where your coming from...  I just don't know if I agree with effect of the overall premise or potential impact of your premise...

[dwjlien]

My mod IST, only has 1 option when you right click an NPC, I designed it specifically this way, as I too, was annoyed at the bloating of the menu. However, it has caused my mod to be quite clicky, as with only 1 entry point,  and a max of 4 options per event page, the result is a tonne of sub menus to click through. I feel it made my mod fit in better with others, but less good in its own right, as multiple people have complained about the clicking, while this topic is slightly the obverse of that problem.

So you really cant win. ?

 

Modders are generally, just a lone guy working on his own thing, and then sharing it. Collaborative erotic modding is even less common. So I completely agree with you OP, but there's no easy solution.

 

There is a simple one though: learn to mod yourself and tweak the mods to your own personal preferences And actually just deleting a few decisions from a mods .txt file is easy if you want to do it.

 

OF course, some hero could make a unifying mod framework, but that's basically a full time job for a month. EG; DW or LF are great and huuuge on LL, but I don't get off on fantasy content, so don't use them, thus no personal motivation to see how they gel or conflict. And the maintainers of LF and DW certainly shouldn't feel obliged to work melding their creations to my piddly little mod for the 5 people that use it.

That's just the nature of the beast, it could very be well done, but its hours of work in someones life for no reward.

 

Maybe ck3  will be a better engine and platform, and  as the community is now up and running a framework/solution will happen early on there, now that ( I agree) it's a pretty obvious need if you want to play with every toy in the toy box.

 

2 hours ago, Strec said:

remember that modding without having players using the mod remains forever some sort of intellectual masturbation, Nothing else ^^

I do take issue with this though. I make my mods for me, to fit my tastes, so I can play with them. I share because it's nice to do so, but my time isn't wasted if no-one else uses it, *I* use it, and that's enough for me . Game developers who's lively-hood depends on pleasing others with their work, yes, they have to appease players, but not hobbyist modders.

... Having typed that out, i realize I DO agree with what you wrote - modding is mental masturbation - and masturbation is something we all do by ourselves and enjoy, it's not wasted time or shameful lol.

[Strec]

It seems I was not really clear or perhaps the word Framework I used is not adequate.

 

The minimum thing to do is only having one unique set or 3 traits for all the mods (branded slave, in-training, trained) so if you enslave a NPC with a MOD you can train it with another mod.

 

But if this needs a long time to be learned as a framework and/or a full time job for a month I think I will never mod on CK2 ?

[babanathie]

The problem with inter-mod enslavement is that each mod out there names, and rightly so by modding standards, the slave trait differently.  Slave status is usually handled by assigning traits and turning some flags, like can inherit, off.  However, the name of the trait, under the hood that most players never see, is usually different.  This allows for multiple mods to exist without interfering with each other.  For example, the original Dark World (I think Serpent Kingdom), named the slave trait, slave.  In CHF, it is cfh_slave.  KISS uses cfh_slave, but another trait ends up activating many of the KISS features, kiss_branded.  As long as the names are different, DW and KISS would exist without interfering with each other.  You can get decision bloat from having two "enslave" options.  But most modders go with different names to avoid conflicts and leave it up to the players to pick and choose their mods. 

 

For a mod author, you would have to know how every trait is named, in the other mod, if you were to create an "interconnected" mod.  That's work that many authors aren't going to put into their mods unless that happens to be their goal.  Personally, I didn't create KISS to play perfectly with another slavery mods, except CHF; so, I don't really have an incentive to interconnect with those other mods.  Many of those mods do some of the same things as mine (most leave out the NPC AI), but getting two disparate mods, in terms of internal naming, to play nice...  That's a level of commitment I won't do....

 

Now, having said that...  The most irritating thing about posting a mod is getting feedback.  I genuinely would like feedback.  I like this feature; I hate that feature.  I liked the prices on this but don't understand the pricing for that.  You know this mod has this feature; it would be nice if you had a similar feature...  ETC...  Stuff like that helps make a better mod...  That doesn't happen as much, at least for me...  But my mod is relatively new so...  I got the Patient trait...  I guess that's a side note...

 

More back on subject, I will say that modding is only as difficult, or time-consuming, as the modder ends up making it.  KISS started as a simple mod, way back before I named it, that allowed me to fuck a CHF slave.  That's it, just one targeted decision.  The lines of code that made that happen...  That's a mod.  Afterwards, I started to add other lines of code that allowed the player to sell slaves to other NPCs.  Same mod, more code...  The additional code made it seem more complicated, but, at least at that point, was just two mods rolled into one...  I only work on my mod on the weekends, predominately.  I play during the week; I guess some people call that a play-test.    It's enough to average around two updates a month.  I haven't been doing this long; so, we'll see how that schedule holds up.

 

If you want to mod, I would suggest starting with a really small feature, that doesn't depend on other mods, that you want...  Go to the CK2 modding wiki and make it happen.  Hell, you could replicate something relatively simple like Sex Life to not have the bigger event mod dependency.  Once you get the basics, you can then expand into other areas.  Understanding the basics is really key to figuring out how to make things happen.  Funny fact - auctioning, or what's about ready to go from selling a slave to auctioning  a slave, was just me trying to learn about the basic structure of events in CK2.  I just tooled around to see what I could do and couldn't do with the code...  Now I have a decent idea on how to handle events...  After making the have sex decision, I decided to create something that would allow me to use a feature called third-party decisions, basically like the vanilla marriage decision.  I tooled around with that, now you can select a slave and sell her, using a third party decision, to some noble of your choosing in a far off land....  But then, I get a certain amount of enjoyment out of writing lines of code...  So, I'm weird...

 

If you try to learn the entirety of CK2 modding in one sitting, you will probably fail; however, if you pick and choose what you want to do and what you want to learn...  It makes things more manageable. 

[Strec]

7 hours ago, babanathie said:

If you try to learn the entirety of CK2 modding in one sitting, you will probably fail; however, if you pick and choose what you want to do and what you want to learn...  It makes things more manageable. 

I'm not really decided to mod on CK2 so the problem does not really exists for now but what I am sure is that if I do that on it I'll apply the same basic rule as in any other mod I've done in any other programming langage and will never directly access to any data without a getter/setter, to have only one entry point to modify if I decide to change any gameplay feature of my mod  

[lockeslylcrit]

12 hours ago, Strec said:

It seems I was not really clear or perhaps the word Framework I used is not adequate.

 

The minimum thing to do is only having one unique set or 3 traits for all the mods (branded slave, in-training, trained) so if you enslave a NPC with a MOD you can train it with another mod.

 

But if this needs a long time to be learned as a framework and/or a full time job for a month I think I will never mod on CK2

You mean how Luxuria Fantasia has scripted triggers to look for Dark World Reborn traits and buildings, and then allows those traits/buildings/whatever to interact with LF stuff?

 

What you are suggesting is already a thing. LF has always been a framework. Just the bare essentials for other modders to add on to and expand (see: Tentacled Dreams, Tale of Nine Tails, Elven Expansion, Demon Empire, Ala's Body Mod, etc).

[Strec]

I recognise the work you've made on DW and LF (I'm currently switching from one to the other) and it remember me the work that have been done on Fallout New Vegas in some old times

 

Honestly my post was more intended as an alert and advice to a potential new wave of modders coming on CK2 to avoid each one to do the same errors, I'm old enough to know that nobody can force anyone to join a Community if he decided to work alone. 

[babanathie]

The problem is...  Your post came across, to me at least, as make sure your new slavery mod plays nice with the established slavery mods or nobody will download it.  If nobody downloads it, it's a waste of (my - being your) time.  That ain't helpful; at least to me, it's not.  I'm sure people have differing opinions on that.  I actually thought about pulling my mod for a split second as a result.  I could do my "mental masturbation" on my own.  That thought only lasted a split second.  I have goals for this mod and luckily that doesn't include getting the most downloads.  I actually want to see what I can manipulate and learn about in the CK2 modding engine and posting the mod motivates me to keep a schedule, well at least for short term...  If someone likes the mod, that's an added bonus.  If everyone hates...  s&*t happens...

 

 

[dwjlien]

@Strec being as I felt this post was aimed quite a bit at me ?, I've made some adjustments to IST that I hope you'll like

 

How does 1.0.3's integration with Dark World: Reborn work?

In IST's menu (right-click self) > Mod options and Dynasty stats, you can now disable IST kidnapping and slave breaking features, the game will look for Dark World's equivalent, meaning less doubling up of diplomacy options when clicking a character. I feel like the breaking  process is a big part of ISTs core and you're missing out not having it... but I'm not here to tell you how to wank or play the game lol.

 

(IST's) Designate Slave , replaced by Enslave Prisoner (DW:R)

(IST's) Enslaved Decisions, replaced by Slave Training  (skilled/pleasure/labourer etc)(DW:R)

Once DW:R's slave Training has completed and a slave has received the Slave Branded trait, IST Slave Training options kick into get to Trained/Courtesan status .

 

If you'd be kind enough to test it and report back, you might be doing both of us a favor It really does need testing as I'm not at all familiar with DW's systems, technicalities or ethos.

 

[Strec]

I won't play for now but I'll test as soon as I can. More detailled answer in the md thread.

[dwjlien]

Okey dokies, I just PM'd you, but take my tone with a pinch of salt, my cat just shit on my carpet and I'm not in the best of moods.

[Strec]

No problem, as soon as I try to help I've no fear to be insulted, I'm not really masochist but I consider that as some fun

 

Message is done, this thread can be closed I think, it have no longer any interest.