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| Thread: Mod Manager? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · «PREV |
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sfidanza
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted January 30, 2008 10:40 AM |
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You're right. Go ahead. 
That's the beauty of xml: being future proof. All I'll have to do (or anyone else for any mod DB), is provide a webservice-like xml feed that you can query, and that returns the information in the xml format you want.
Queries could be along the lines:
- get all mods
- get all new mods published since XXX
- get all mods updated since XXX
- get all mods from author XXX
- get all mods with this and this criterion...
When you're in the xml format definition, I'd like to discuss it with you, to synchronize on standard items and denominations. Maybe we'll have to define the XML Schema, but even if we don't go this far, at least we'll agree on a common grammar.
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Gnoll_Mage
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted January 30, 2008 10:48 AM |
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Yay! 
Here is what it looks like atm:
<mods>
<mod>
<title>Sun Warrior</title>
<author>
<name>Gnoll_Mage</name>
<name2>Andy</name2>
</author>
<file>Sun Warrior</file>
</mod>
<mod>
<title>Sharpened Textures</title>
<author>
<name>Fiur</name>
<name2>Don't know</name2>
</author>
<file>Sharp</file>
</mod>
<mod>
<title>Tales Of Karador</title>
<author>
<name>Kronos1000</name>
<name2>Don't know</name2>
</author>
<file>ToK</file>
</mod>
</mods>
Obviously all the other mod details would be added in too.
And you're right, I hadn't thought - anyone could create a database and it would be trivial to allow users of the program to select which online database to browse...
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Wulfstan8182
Famous Hero
, eh?
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posted January 31, 2008 02:13 AM |
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yo gnoll, i have an idea for a database which would make things pretty simple. you are not gonna go around, waste time, ask people if they want their mod "published", wait for them to answer, and upload the the mod. i would ask Val to make a special Mod database place on AoH or HC that if people want a mod "published", they just upload it right there. and then the program would be able to access it, work faster, and work correctly.
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Gnoll_Mage
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted January 31, 2008 09:14 AM |
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Yes that's probably the way to go about it. Although once the program is out, I may try to contact the creators of some of the more significant mods, so that the program has more purpose (when it is released, there needs to be a fair few mods in the database already I think).
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Gnoll_Mage
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted January 31, 2008 10:56 PM |
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Question ~ what details should be provided for each mod?
So far:
Title - obvious, must be there for all mods
Creator I - web username, or real name if none, needs to be there for all mods
Creator II - real name if not given in the above
Mod type - textures, NCF, new content, new feature, large project, game mechanics etc. - how to deal with this? Have the mods listed just by their main effect on the game, or have "NCF, Game Mechanics" etc. allowed i.e. multiple types per mod? What types should there be?
What else is needed?
Possibles (some of these are important actually):
HoMM version suitability (don't know if this program will work with vanilla / HoF yet)
Screenshot
Description
Link to online page / thread for mod
Version (for updating - program can check for updates by comparing version of downloaded mod on hard drive with mod on internet database)
Date created
Date last modified (last update uploaded)
Number of downloads (i.e. popularity)
Language (how to deal with language packs?)
Ooh, there's an idea, add in some sort of online mod rating system maybe?
Please correct, improve, remove etc. - it's important that we get this right, and it is hard (and boring) to make continuous changes to the system - much easier to get it right at the start, and implement the lot in one go.
Thanks.
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Wulfstan8182
Famous Hero
, eh?
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posted February 01, 2008 02:41 AM |
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i don't understand the need of Author#2. here's what i had in mind.
1. You would choose from tabs at the top of the page what kind of mod you want. there would be categories such as NCF, Retextures, User Campaigns, Stats, Other
2. you would see a list and when you click on one, the description would appear below the box.
3. you would see a small screenie to the right.
4. The link to the thread/anything else would be included in the description.
5. and of course, the holy download button!
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Gnoll_Mage
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted February 02, 2008 12:51 AM |
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Author 2 is in case someone wants to put their online name and their real name to a mod. I added a dropdown box to allow selecting only one type of mod to be shown (easier to add new types this way, but this could always be made into tabs / buttons later on).
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sfidanza
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted February 05, 2008 08:47 PM |
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I don't think Creator II is required as you say here, you can just put everything in Creator: sfidanza (Stephane Fidanza), or Me aka XXX
However, you can have multiple creators, or at least contributors to a mod, that should be listed at some point.
Also, I would add a "Comments" entry, for the author to comment on his mod (guidelines, install instructions, credits...), which is slightly different from Description.
As far as I'm concerned, Mod type really needs to be a tag (multiple choices), rather a simple category. It's no problem in the xml format (just list several tags). In the interface, a predefined list with checkboxes is a start, maybe with the option to add custom tags in an input line.
One way to handle localization packs is to include them in the mod package (so the creator has to handle them). It's far more complex to correctly associate them separately (but the feature might be required anyway for other reasons), since it means handling mod dependencies:
this mod requires this (and that) other mods. And that mod has all these sub-mods available.
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Gnoll_Mage
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted February 06, 2008 12:39 AM |
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Quote:
I don't think Creator II is required as you say here, you can just put everything in Creator: sfidanza (Stephane Fidanza), or Me aka XXX
However, you can have multiple creators, or at least contributors to a mod, that should be listed at some point.
That's a good point, naive to think that every mod is by one person only.
Quote:
Also, I would add a "Comments" entry, for the author to comment on his mod (guidelines, install instructions, credits...), which is slightly different from Description.
Quote:
As far as I'm concerned, Mod type really needs to be a tag (multiple choices), rather a simple category. It's no problem in the xml format (just list several tags). In the interface, a predefined list with checkboxes is a start, maybe with the option to add custom tags in an input line.
This is already implemented in a half-hearted way - each mod has multiple tags as you should be able to see in one of the screenies.
Quote:
One way to handle localization packs is to include them in the mod package (so the creator has to handle them). It's far more complex to correctly associate them separately (but the feature might be required anyway for other reasons), since it means handling mod dependencies:
this mod requires this (and that) other mods. And that mod has all these sub-mods available.
Hmm this is another tricky issue (especially when combined with updating), it all needs to be simple and easy to use. Atm, I'm thinking that the creator uploads separate fully-functioning mods, each of a different language, and there is a country flag or whatever shown in the database viewer. A slightly redundant way, maybe...
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