Hi everyone,
Recently I've been talking to some modders and other mappers about the current state of KF2 and the modding scene; more or less issues that we've encountered and some general things we would like to see changed for the future.
Killing Floor 1 and 2 have both relied heavily on the free and willing support of modders and mappers to keep short and long term players interested in the game after hundreds and even thousands of hours. TWI themselves even started out as a mod team and so I think it is especially important that they pay attention to some some issues and grievances that we have encountered along our own development process.
I recently reached out on the Killing Floor Discord and got a reply. If we can compile a list of things that we would like to see addressed, then they will bring it to the front and have a look at it. See below:
Delta - Today at 10:22 AM
Whos in charge with dealing with mod integration with KF2?
[TW]Kitten Mittens - Today at 10:22 AM
Whatcha need Delta?
Delta - Today at 10:25 AM
just wondering if theres gonna be some changes in the future to it, always seems to be a fight against the engine - I guess specifically with how things will be accessed and sound integration for mods - one problem I was talking to a friend about is how you cant really make a mod with sounds without getting users to manually install sounds
Delta - Today at 10:27 AM
a lot of modding stuff seems to be left untouched - I noticed the workshopUploadTool was updated with the tags thing - but the tags are like 'test 1' and 'test 2' etc, I mean I can work with it and assign the tags manually if I edit the profile for it, but I dont know how many people think to do that
Pirangunter21 - Today at 10:28 AM
Oh yeah the tags still test 1 and test 2 etc
[TW]Kitten Mittens - Today at 10:30 AM
Get us a wish list going, Delta. Can pass it on to peeps for more visibility. We are aware of quite few requests. Especially when it comes to sound. @[TW]Yoshiro may have a bit more on it.
[TW]Yoshiro - Today at 10:31 AM
Tags should be fixed in the next update
Pirangunter21 - Today at 10:32 AM
Cool!
[TW]Yoshiro - Today at 10:32 AM
the upload tool got a bit cross compiled between Vietnam and KF 2
which led to some issues
I think they are all sorted internally now
but making sure
Delta - Today at 10:33 AM
Alright, I ask around for stuff, might be good if I make a thread on the forums as well so people can contribute/have their say on stuff theyd like to see changed. It would be good to make it easier for some folks to voice their opinion since KF2 relies a bit and continues to live with the help of the modders/mappers
Delta - Today at 10:34 AM
pinky promise you guys will look at the thread though? :stuck_out_tongue:
[TW]Kitten Mittens - Today at 10:34 AM
Will do!
So the requests goes out to us to get a general list of things that would be good to see for us modders and mappers. I highly recommend and I would like people to feel free to have their say here on things they would like to see addressed. Pass the word on as well if you know anyone that might have something useful to say as well.
The only thing I recommend is try and keep the discussion and tone of your posts civil and non-aggressive, its easier to get attention with carefully thought out words rather than blatant attacks.
Theres no guarentee that all the stuff we talk about will be implemented but it is still important to bring major issues to the fore-front.
==============
For me as a mapper here a list of things that I feel should be addressed:
1. Documentation
It would be good if we could get some general update and centralization on documentation - at the moment resources are split between 3 main sources. The forums, The wiki and the Atlassian Wiki. Merging information to one location would be extremely helpful instead of trying to hunt down information from different sources. The forums also have a bunch of information laying around that is missing from the wiki's as well, additionally its hard to tell (especially with new people coming into the field), whether or not some of the information is still up to date.
One thing that is also very present on the forums is the contributions/tips/posts of things mappers and modders have found that answer questions left really open by the wiki. I know at least in the mapping section there is a large amount of tips that would be extremely useful if it were on the wiki (thread of tips, video tutorials, etc); I've written an addition to the holdout mechanics which I feel would be very useful to include in the wiki itself.
I guess this comes to the crux of this point as well - it would be good if you could open up some of the wiki for community contributions - approved articles, edits and the like, just so community can flourish.
2. Clearer Communication and Update to Whitelisted Mods
Just more participation in the forums, please. There's pinned threads with no replies from devs that almost go back 2 years. It really does seem like we're in the dark. I'm not asking for a 'help us do x' sort of participation, but if theres a valid question that is present in at least threads written by TWI devs - we would like a reply.
One really obvious example is the Whitelisted Mods and Mutators thread which is abandoned. There's no real clear list of what mutators are white-listed (I believe theres maybe 2 floating in one of the wikis....[see above issue]), whether TWI are still accepting mutators to be whitelisted or what is going on.
Another example is the WorkshopUploadTool thread which was active for a long while and went completely unnoticed until a bug report was made. It seems the WUT has been updated to include tags now, but its still kinda broken (though in the above post it seems as if it is going to be fixed with the next update).
3. Map Previews for Custom Maps
This is a little thing - but I think it is long overdue and a little bit surprising it hasn't been added yet. There really isn't any more to it other than something that would make the game feel a little more complete and just general previewing of maps is a nice QoL addition.
4. Landscape Tool Bug Fixing/Documentation
Probably the biggest thing that's gone untouched for a while - guidelines on limitations on how to use this for KF2 specifically would be greatly appreciated. It seems very confusing on how it works; if there are material limits, material instruction limits, component complexity limitations or all the above. You can spend a good couple of hours sculpting and painting a landscape, only to boot up the game and realize that it isn't functional because its covered in blue and white squares and there isn't any errors to tell you why.
At the moment it seems like its a "you got lucky" or importing custom landscapes meshes are the only solutions, which ain't really that great. A look into foliage tool would be good too.
==============
These are just some of the things I've encountered when dealing with mapping so far. I know from talking to some other modders that there are a nice bunch of issues they've encountered while dealing with the code (ranging from complete lack of comments/documentation to weirdly assigned private variables which make doing a specific things really painful to even making mods that use sound). And I'll leave it to them to explain it in depth.
So Modders and Mappers please have your say in an effort to improve the experience for us, people who use our work and the game itself.
Recently I've been talking to some modders and other mappers about the current state of KF2 and the modding scene; more or less issues that we've encountered and some general things we would like to see changed for the future.
Killing Floor 1 and 2 have both relied heavily on the free and willing support of modders and mappers to keep short and long term players interested in the game after hundreds and even thousands of hours. TWI themselves even started out as a mod team and so I think it is especially important that they pay attention to some some issues and grievances that we have encountered along our own development process.
I recently reached out on the Killing Floor Discord and got a reply. If we can compile a list of things that we would like to see addressed, then they will bring it to the front and have a look at it. See below:
Spoiler!
Delta - Today at 10:22 AM
Whos in charge with dealing with mod integration with KF2?
[TW]Kitten Mittens - Today at 10:22 AM
Whatcha need Delta?
Delta - Today at 10:25 AM
just wondering if theres gonna be some changes in the future to it, always seems to be a fight against the engine - I guess specifically with how things will be accessed and sound integration for mods - one problem I was talking to a friend about is how you cant really make a mod with sounds without getting users to manually install sounds
Delta - Today at 10:27 AM
a lot of modding stuff seems to be left untouched - I noticed the workshopUploadTool was updated with the tags thing - but the tags are like 'test 1' and 'test 2' etc, I mean I can work with it and assign the tags manually if I edit the profile for it, but I dont know how many people think to do that
Pirangunter21 - Today at 10:28 AM
Oh yeah the tags still test 1 and test 2 etc
[TW]Kitten Mittens - Today at 10:30 AM
Get us a wish list going, Delta. Can pass it on to peeps for more visibility. We are aware of quite few requests. Especially when it comes to sound. @[TW]Yoshiro may have a bit more on it.
[TW]Yoshiro - Today at 10:31 AM
Tags should be fixed in the next update
Pirangunter21 - Today at 10:32 AM
Cool!
[TW]Yoshiro - Today at 10:32 AM
the upload tool got a bit cross compiled between Vietnam and KF 2
which led to some issues
I think they are all sorted internally now
but making sure
Delta - Today at 10:33 AM
Alright, I ask around for stuff, might be good if I make a thread on the forums as well so people can contribute/have their say on stuff theyd like to see changed. It would be good to make it easier for some folks to voice their opinion since KF2 relies a bit and continues to live with the help of the modders/mappers
Delta - Today at 10:34 AM
pinky promise you guys will look at the thread though? :stuck_out_tongue:
[TW]Kitten Mittens - Today at 10:34 AM
Will do!
So the requests goes out to us to get a general list of things that would be good to see for us modders and mappers. I highly recommend and I would like people to feel free to have their say here on things they would like to see addressed. Pass the word on as well if you know anyone that might have something useful to say as well.
The only thing I recommend is try and keep the discussion and tone of your posts civil and non-aggressive, its easier to get attention with carefully thought out words rather than blatant attacks.
Theres no guarentee that all the stuff we talk about will be implemented but it is still important to bring major issues to the fore-front.
==============
For me as a mapper here a list of things that I feel should be addressed:
1. Documentation
It would be good if we could get some general update and centralization on documentation - at the moment resources are split between 3 main sources. The forums, The wiki and the Atlassian Wiki. Merging information to one location would be extremely helpful instead of trying to hunt down information from different sources. The forums also have a bunch of information laying around that is missing from the wiki's as well, additionally its hard to tell (especially with new people coming into the field), whether or not some of the information is still up to date.
One thing that is also very present on the forums is the contributions/tips/posts of things mappers and modders have found that answer questions left really open by the wiki. I know at least in the mapping section there is a large amount of tips that would be extremely useful if it were on the wiki (thread of tips, video tutorials, etc); I've written an addition to the holdout mechanics which I feel would be very useful to include in the wiki itself.
I guess this comes to the crux of this point as well - it would be good if you could open up some of the wiki for community contributions - approved articles, edits and the like, just so community can flourish.
2. Clearer Communication and Update to Whitelisted Mods
Just more participation in the forums, please. There's pinned threads with no replies from devs that almost go back 2 years. It really does seem like we're in the dark. I'm not asking for a 'help us do x' sort of participation, but if theres a valid question that is present in at least threads written by TWI devs - we would like a reply.
One really obvious example is the Whitelisted Mods and Mutators thread which is abandoned. There's no real clear list of what mutators are white-listed (I believe theres maybe 2 floating in one of the wikis....[see above issue]), whether TWI are still accepting mutators to be whitelisted or what is going on.
Another example is the WorkshopUploadTool thread which was active for a long while and went completely unnoticed until a bug report was made. It seems the WUT has been updated to include tags now, but its still kinda broken (though in the above post it seems as if it is going to be fixed with the next update).
3. Map Previews for Custom Maps
This is a little thing - but I think it is long overdue and a little bit surprising it hasn't been added yet. There really isn't any more to it other than something that would make the game feel a little more complete and just general previewing of maps is a nice QoL addition.
4. Landscape Tool Bug Fixing/Documentation
Probably the biggest thing that's gone untouched for a while - guidelines on limitations on how to use this for KF2 specifically would be greatly appreciated. It seems very confusing on how it works; if there are material limits, material instruction limits, component complexity limitations or all the above. You can spend a good couple of hours sculpting and painting a landscape, only to boot up the game and realize that it isn't functional because its covered in blue and white squares and there isn't any errors to tell you why.
At the moment it seems like its a "you got lucky" or importing custom landscapes meshes are the only solutions, which ain't really that great. A look into foliage tool would be good too.
==============
These are just some of the things I've encountered when dealing with mapping so far. I know from talking to some other modders that there are a nice bunch of issues they've encountered while dealing with the code (ranging from complete lack of comments/documentation to weirdly assigned private variables which make doing a specific things really painful to even making mods that use sound). And I'll leave it to them to explain it in depth.
So Modders and Mappers please have your say in an effort to improve the experience for us, people who use our work and the game itself.