Modular design

[xadder]

Hello,

I have a bit of a complex idea for my game.  I'm not even sure if its possible so Ill explain and see what everyone thinks.  I want to make a modular style game where you can download and install the parts of the game you want and play them seamlessly.  Here's what I am thinking:

1. The core game is required and has a story and characters to play.

2. Players can download "add-on"/"mods" and install as they want.  Each will contain different characters and/or levels/new gameplay features

3. If a player uninstalls a mod the game should still work

My question is, are mods supported in MV?  Can I have players download additional content that I make later in development?

 

[Andar]

yes and no - they aren't directly supported, but they can be made to work if you know what you're doing and plan ahead.


2: addons need to be either cumulative (addon #3 requires #1 and #2) or you'll have to put in a lot of complex scripting


3: will only work if the player starts a new game after removing that addon

 

[Blue001]

Hello,

I have a bit of a complex idea for my game.  I'm not even sure if its possible so Ill explain and see what everyone thinks.  I want to make a modular style game where you can download and install the parts of the game you want and play them seamlessly.  Here's what I am thinking:

1. The core game is required and has a story and characters to play.

2. Players can download "add-on"/"mods" and install as they want.  Each will contain different characters and/or levels/new gameplay features

3. If a player uninstalls a mod the game should still work

My question is, are mods supported in MV?  Can I have players download additional content that I make later in development?

I have never seen number 3 work that great in any game. If you remove a mod and it adds say, a map. and you uninstall that mod after a player saves his game on that map... then the game will surely crash when loading that save.

Bethesda games for example, after loading a save, that included mod data that is no longer present, gives you a message about possible issues if you continue to load. So, again, while it's possible. It really depends on the modded in features. So you would have to to have to have error catching all over the place to catch and avoid crashes due to missing data/features/graphics. etc.

 

[xadder]

Thank you for the information.  I think that will help me decide the direction I want to go.

 

[CosBlade]

Rather than make a new thread, perhaps it's best to ask here because I had a similar question:

If I were to want to make a game that was released in linear chapters, but allowed the player to backtrack, would this be doable?

To elaborate: I'm building a game with four large cities, each that has a dozen or so sidequests and a chunk of the main quest. Because of the amount of work involved I would like to release the first chapter (the first city) and then work on the 2nd one while people play the first chapter. When chapter 2 is released a few months later, they can continue their existing save game seamlessly, and will then have the option to go back to city 1 if they have unfinished sidequests. The same goes on for chapters 3 and 4, allowing seamless backtracking. Obviously, somebody late to the party could download all four and just start a new game.

Thanks for any response. I'm still getting re-familiarized with all of this.

 

[Andar]

Rather than make a new thread, perhaps it's best to ask here because I had a similar question:

Please make a new topic for that.
We want the forum to remain organized with one problem = one topic, and your question is a bit different.


It can be done, but for detailed answers it's better to have your own topic for that, and in the support section of the maker you want to use.


Closing