Any "hidden features" for modders planned?

[Doc Shock]

Ok, let me explain what I mean. Epic always claims that they really care about the Mod community, and they proved it a lot of times, so these are no hollow statements at all.
Just remember the vCTF gametype. It was left out, but they added support for it and the modders did the rest. It is now a very popular gametype.

What I'd like to know is, can we expect similar things like the UT2k4-vCTF-support in UT2k7?

One example would be the hidden monster AI that was present in every UT incarnation and gave birth to a bunch of cool co-op mods. I treated this particular topic quite intensively here (http://utforums.epicgames.com/showpost.php?p=24609405&postcount=67).

Another thing would concern the vehicles. UT2004 wasn't out for a few weeks and the first modders tried to build mech-style vehicles, simply because mechs seem to be the most popular form of sci-fi vehicles. But most of them failed and the rest had to create "fakes", i.e. hover vehicles with leg animations. To build "real" mechs, foot placement calculation is needed, that way it doesn't feel like driving a hover vehicle, and it prevents its feet from sinking into the ground. I don't know if UT2007 will provide something like that, because the Darkwalker legs seem(!) to work quite different (pulling an antigrav weapon-platform around is not really walking) and we haven't seen all necris vehicles yet, but if no necris vehicle will be a real walker, it would be great if there was at least a basic codebase there for modders to work with. I'd take any bet that among the first user-made vehicle announcements, there will be at least one or more plans for mech-style vehicles. UT-fans are sci-fi fans, and most sci-fi fans love mechs. Period. Would be cool if Epic had put that into consideration. And hey, even the next incarnations of BF and ET will have cool looking bipedal mechs, would be bad if UT wouldn't prove that it is capable of that as well.

Another thing would be restrictions and how easy the devs made it to get past those. Take the hoverboard grapple for example. In most interviews it was said they can attach to vehicles only. So, if a modder decides to remove this restriction to be able to grapple to terrain and structures as well (to go spider-man style with his hoverboard, or to make sharp turns by attaching it to the ground), can he do this with a few lines of code (or even a simple change of a boolean value), because the devs already thought that someone might want to do such a thing, or will he have to re-write half of the thing's functionality to make it work? By the way, it would also be nice to know if it is possible to control the length of the grapple beam with the mousewheel, and if not, if it was considered and now easy to re-implement by modders.

There might be dozens of similar examples I just didn't thought of, but I think you guys got my point. Please, Epic, do not ditch code that wasn't implemented, the community might be able to put it to good use after release.
I might ask for a bit much, when I say I'd like to read some kind of official statement here, but it would be good to know Epic did take notice of these concerns.

For now, let's see what the rest of the community thinks about it. I'm looking forward to your replies, guys.

Greetings,
Doc Shock

[r1esG0]

Another thing would be restrictions and how easy the devs made it to get past those. Take the hoverboard grapple for example. In most interviews it was said they can attach to vehicles only. So, if a modder decides to remove this restriction to be able to grapple to terrain and structures as well (to go spider-man style with his hoverboard, or to make sharp turns by attaching it to the ground), can he do this with a few lines of code (or even a simple change of a boolean value), because the devs already thought that someone might want to do such a thing, or will he have to re-write half of the thing's functionality to make it work? By the way, it would also be nice to know if it is possible to control the length of the grapple beam with the mousewheel, and if not, if it was considered and now easy to re-implement by modders.
did take notice of these concerns.



what you demand its very easy to do for a coder

take an example, go download the chaos unreal last installment, and see the grapples that characters are given,
you can do the spyderman style running with that.
Of course, what it seems that you re demanding is a way in order nonprogrammers can do stuff like that (or maybe this is my impression),

well, the line between a scripter and a nonscripter is a tought one.
If you have plans, and ideas and want to make mods, epic has given you a complete programming languaje object oriented . Go learn programming and do it.

If not, you re just dreaming. (IMO)

[elmuerte]

Creating vCTF, as included with ut2004, is trivial. Just like vTDM would be trivial.

Mechs in UT2004 are possible, it just takes quite some effort and wits to create it. Mechs are probably the most difficult "vehicle" form to create. And I think they are overrated.

The problem is that you never know in what direction people want to mod. You can't anticipate on that. Doing something to make it possible to do X will in turn make it very difficult to do Y.

[p2xelgen]

I would love to create a TC mod, I even have a number written up. But my skills are not in coding therefore I have no chance. I am sure Epic will bend a** over t*t to help others with the skills to progress and give UT2007 the V factor... ;)

[Doc Shock]

Go learn programming and do it.I already learned programming, and a few months ago I started to teach myself UScript. Since then I wrote a few mutators, see my sig. I also know about the chaos grapple.
I wasn't asking for a grapple specifically, I wanted to raise the question if Epic were designing such things with later tweaking by others in mind. The grapple was a good example, because it could have been implemented in two ways: First, design it so that it can only grapple to vehicles from the beginning. Second, design it so that it can grapple to anything and restrict it to vehicles afterwards (sth like "if (target==vehicle)"). The latter would leave a small part a modder has to change it to make it work, the first one would require to re-write it almost from scratch. This can be applied to lots of other things.

Same goes for the vehicles. Way A would be to design every vehicle on paper and implement them, way B would be to program the basics for every kind of possible vehicle, like treaded, wheeled, bipedal, multi-legged, hover, flying helicopter-style, flying plane-style, watercraft. When those basics are set, the concepting starts and the vehicles that will actually make it are designed. If then, for example, they don't come up with a concept for a water vehicle and therefore don't put one in the final game, there will at least be basic code for it buried somewhere in the sourcecode for the modders, so they might build water vehicles in the future.

[elmuerte]

Broken code is worse than non-existing code. You'll have to create at least some sample implementation to see if your blueprint actually work.

[Doc Shock]

Of course you'd have to. But that can be something simplistic, similar to the UT2003 Bulldog. Not a piece of art, but a well-working example for early vehicle code. In fact, the Bulldog is the best example for what I asked for. A proof-of-concept inofficially integrated into the game for modders to use.

[HellFox]

Another thing would concern the vehicles. UT2004 wasn't out for a few weeks and the first modders tried to build mech-style vehicles, simply because mechs seem to be the most popular form of sci-fi vehicles. But most of them failed and the rest had to create "fakes", i.e. hover vehicles with leg animations. To build "real" mechs, foot placement calculation is needed, that way it doesn't feel like driving a hover vehicle, and it prevents its feet from sinking into the ground. I don't know if UT2007 will provide something like that, because the Darkwalker legs seem(!) to work quite different (pulling an antigrav weapon-platform around is not really walking) and we haven't seen all necris vehicles yet, but if no necris vehicle will be a real walker, it would be great if there was at least a basic codebase there for modders to work with. I'd take any bet that among the first user-made vehicle announcements, there will be at least one or more plans for mech-style vehicles. UT-fans are sci-fi fans, and most sci-fi fans love mechs. Period. Would be cool if Epic had put that into consideration. And hey, even the next incarnations of BF and ET will have cool looking bipedal mechs, would be bad if UT wouldn't prove that it is capable of that as well.
completely agree with you on that

[Xyx]

When time runs out and unfinished sub-projects will get cut off and left for dead inside the code base, you'll have your "hidden features". ;)