Please make GTR Revival modable

[chrisracer]

What ever it is or becomes, please, make it modable!

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

I would very much doubt it will be, but Ill happily be proven wrong.

 

[GTR233]

I guess it is a license problem with some brands : as a studio you pay to get some prestigious manufacturer, it could be exclusive contracts sometimes so neither studio nor manufacturer want to see these products in other games...for free.

GT Legends/GTR2 /AMS1 are based on ISI engine which was made to be moddable from the start of the rFactor project which did not include any brand/manufacturer so they let the community to be creative with mods (the essential of rF as quite nobody played stock content).
If you look at recent games produced by Ian Bell the last 10 years then the probability of a new moddable platform is extremely low.

 

[jgf]

Every race sim is "moddable", just not always easily moddable. Track creation can be relatively simple with a WYSIWYG editor or quite complex with design via spreadsheet. Car creation can use standard format 3D models or some arcane proprietary format requiring conversion (which may or may not give good results). Files can be buried in encrypted containers or loose for easy editing.

An argument can be made for either extreme. Easy modding means a plethora of mods, of varying topic, quality, and realism, which of course is quite subjective. Difficult modding means fewer mods but generally higher quality.

Then there is the issue of how easy is it to install a mod. We all like to just drop a track or car into the proper folder and it appears in a game menu; but there are those sims where you cannot add anything, only replace, so constant decisions of "do I want this track or that track? this car or that car?" (for some reason this seems the standard for rally sims, though the old F1GP series was this way also), leading to third party utilities for file swapping (which sadly often do not survive new versions of windows, remember GP3Commander or N3PlayerPicker?).

It does seem the trend lately is towards sims being more and more difficult to mod. Recently I downloaded a sound set for a newer sim, thinking I could adapt it, or at least the sound files themselves, to GTR2. I wasted an hour downloading and trying four different programs before successfully extracting the files from the container, only to end up with an assortment of wav and ogg files with gibberish file names of no rhyme or reason and no discernible cfg or ini file to delineate their usage.

I think too many designers are taking the Micro$oft approach to programming - "use my program my way" - deeming any editing or modification to be the work of devious hackers.

Just my 1cent worth.

 

[Pete Conway]

Every race sim is "moddable", just not always easily moddable. Track creation can be relatively simple with a WYSIWYG editor or quite complex with design via spreadsheet. Car creation can use standard format 3D models or some arcane proprietary format requiring conversion (which may or may not give good results). Files can be buried in encrypted containers or loose for easy editing.

An argument can be made for either extreme. Easy modding means a plethora of mods, of varying topic, quality, and realism, which of course is quite subjective. Difficult modding means fewer mods but generally higher quality.

Then there is the issue of how easy is it to install a mod. We all like to just drop a track or car into the proper folder and it appears in a game menu; but there are those sims where you cannot add anything, only replace, so constant decisions of "do I want this track or that track? this car or that car?" (for some reason this seems the standard for rally sims, though the old F1GP series was this way also), leading to third party utilities for file swapping (which sadly often do not survive new versions of windows, remember GP3Commander or N3PlayerPicker?).

It does seem the trend lately is towards sims being more and more difficult to mod. Recently I downloaded a sound set for a newer sim, thinking I could adapt it, or at least the sound files themselves, to GTR2. I wasted an hour downloading and trying four different programs before successfully extracting the files from the container, only to end up with an assortment of wav and ogg files with gibberish file names of no rhyme or reason and no discernible cfg or ini file to delineate their usage.

I think too many designers are taking the Micro$oft approach to programming - "use my program my way" - deeming any editing or modification to be the work of devious hackers.

Just my 1cent worth.

The sad thing is that near everything is becoming "The public wants what the public gets"

 

[jgf]

The sad thing is that near everything is becoming "The public wants what the public gets"

This is in keeping with an ideological shift in technology through the past century. There was a time an inventor would look around, see a need for something, and create it. Today they create something, look around and convince the people they need it.

"Ah, the people; give them a light and they will follow it anywhere."

 

[north]

From the GTR Revival press release:
Modders will be thrilled to hear that the modding scene in GTR 2 that inspired a generation of modders and future developers is front and central in GTR Revival’s design.

 

[Durge Driven]

The sad thing is that near everything is becoming "The public wants what the public gets"

The sad thing for me is the only studio that cared enough was shunned out of existence. Ironic don't you think mod makers bagged it for being "too hard" yet somehow I have fantastic mods, go figure.

However I am 5,000% sadder I will never get to drive rF3 with better modding, physics, tyres, FFB, obvious isn't that they improved each version no more so then the real time dynamics which is the heart of any simulation.

Reiza sold it's soul, SMS never had one to begin.

 

[MJQT]

From the GTR Revival press release:
Modders will be thrilled to hear that the modding scene in GTR 2 that inspired a generation of modders and future developers is front and central in GTR Revival’s design.

This is great to hear.

Frankly, I'd even be content with a situation where other than skinning, modding is not officially supported BUT key files to adjust the sim to your liking (e.g. AI-related text files) are conveniently left unencrypted so that modders can later tweak them to improve the game. That, and one car and one track (like the Camaro and Caruaru in AMS1) are also left unencrypted so that we can decipher the necessary formats and mod the game to our liking. If it's a good game with enjoyable driving and solid AI, people would be willing to put in the effort to figure that out, I think. Kinda like the variety of community-developed tools that came about to help mod the excellent late-90s early-2000s Papyrus sims.

I like the "oops, we didn't quite encrypt everything" strategy because it means you can have a game that ends up being moddable but the studio has plausible deniability to license-holders who might otherwise be worried about modding.

but there are those sims where you cannot add anything, only replace, so constant decisions of "do I want this track or that track? this car or that car?" (for some reason this seems the standard for rally sims, though the old F1GP series was this way also), leading to third party utilities for file swapping (which sadly often do not survive new versions of windows, remember GP3Commander or N3PlayerPicker?).

Thankfully, GP4 utilities like GPx Patch, CSM, and TSM still work on modern Windows. That'd be a huge shame if they didn't.

 

[Eric Rowland]

GTR Revival Will Be “The Most Moddable Auto Platform Ever”, Says Ian Bell