Time to expand?

[Black Legion]

I know this topic is a chewed bone, but I'm quiet interested in what people think NOW of Locomotion, and a possible unofficial expansion (I've read most of the topics about official/unofficial/cracked/patched expansions for Loco... it seems that most people like to argue about legal issues, and don't actually do anything else). So todays question is:
What's Your opinion about an unofficial Locomotion Expansion Set?

[Plastikman]

We have hit the practical limits almost of what can be done through just dat file editing. so unless You are coming to the forums with some sort of new offering ... like You can bust open the EXE and make a patch, This is sort of a pointless topic.

The stopping point here other then obvious legal issues that we would overlook for the point of conversation and that probably no one at Atari would care about...

Is that there is no one here that; has the skill to patch it, has the time to patch it or has the motivation to patch it.

so it lays on a slab in the morgue until powers that be can edit it.

[demontrain]

We have hit the practical limits almost of what can be done through just dat file editing. so unless You are coming to the forums with some sort of new offering ... like You can bust open the EXE and make a patch, This is sort of a pointless topic.

The stopping point here other then obvious legal issues that we would overlook for the point of conversation and that probably no one at Atari would care about...

Is that there is no one here that; has the skill to patch it, has the time to patch it or has the motivation to patch it.

so it lays on a slab in the morgue until powers that be can edit it.

I agree with Plasikman, the limits seem to have been hit, although not all the limits have been used to fullest possible ends. I know that if a "legal" patch could and was made it would be well recieved by most. With that in mind and reading about a german patch (that I haven't tried), it seemed there were so many requests for different fixes to be applied that those that had done the 1st patch were less than excited about trying to please so many WITH so many various and seemingly intense fixes. I think this topic is good but has been run through aka a chewed bone that should be either discussed with intent to make the patch or left to rest in peace.

[Black Legion]

Well maybe I was misunderstandable, this topic was intended to find out if people wants a real set of mods and addons or hunting pretty and useful addons on the different pages is good enough. The "cracking" answer is there only to know what kind of changes people want. I searched at every possible location, but I haven't found any complete "expansion" sets (including new scenarios, vehicles, buildings for all three lands etc.) in one downloadable file or pack. I really don't want revolution, just a single pack, which contains the best of the user made mods and scenarios, so average John Smith type gamers will not have to search 3 forums and 8 caches for different addons, which are not compatible with eachother. IF a smart programmer comes and says: -I'll heck your dear loco for you!; of course I will not send him away. Until then, expansion means a simple usable collection of mods and addons. Please consider this before voting.

[Black Legion]

Oh, and I would really appreciate, if senior modders would first consider to vote to either answer no.2 or 3. (I know everybody wants bigger maps, better AI etc. ergo hacking/patching) Thanx.

[Illegal_Alien]

have some mods to spare for this projekt. NO
I will cooperate actively,create new and change existing mods and addons NO


About the italic line: Dont mod my mods.

[Black Legion]

Becouse we're between gentleman, I don't have to say: changing existing mods means to change some details of the modders own creations (give it company colors, increase/reduce cargo capacity etc; so it can be better integrated into the game) or change it with the original creators permission.
It's Your decision IA. Mind telling why not?

[Plastikman]

same reason i wont add mine,

I am constantly changing and upgrading my work. I can't control that if my items are in multiple packs. it would be pretty messed up if i made a nice new MHQ item and then your pack erased it with some 2 year old LQ model i made.

soon it could possibly be that my packs will be a total US LoMo replacement item anyways. we are trying to replace town buildings, and industries and stations and signals and... shall i keep going?
I already have the OK to use tons of item, question is the time.


the Russian page is making a global Russian pack, the German page s trying to work on a total German pack... the us set is already most of the us stock made.

the best thing you can do to make a global pack a this point, make a thread or a web page or a chm with a link to every single item and what it is... might take you a week.. or six....

heck, maybe you can make a getright file with all the downloads cued up for a real easy DL.

[demontrain]

Good points by all. !!! Especially keeping the quality control. I realize that multiple locations for so many mods is a pain in the hindquarters, so to s quality control with the work spread out into uncontrolable packs.

An updated listing (globally of all the mods would be great nd there have been attempts but time and interest seem to come into play.

[Black Legion]

Well in this case I"m glad Plastic, your mods are very nice. Keep going!
Anybody has any Alpine packs WIP/REL?

[Seelenquell]

if anyone wonders who voted for the last.. it was me..

[Black Legion]

Maybe you're right. But I still love it.

[MjD]

If you actually looked and downloaded what is now one complete install (cheers Plastikman) for the BRSet you will see that there is several (although slightly outdated as they were made for about v3.5) World Regions which included Town Names and Pre-Selected vehicles for the particular region.

These were made way before any new building were really out and as such don't include new signals and buildings. I may have misunderstood what you mean by this topic but the undertaking is huge, as it took me the best part of a couple of hours to get a region set up due to the labour intensity of making one.

As for the global location of all the mods, there is a sticky which includes download locations and topics about the most popular sets, and all the users of new sets need to do is get Andel or IA to update the sticky so that they are included. AMI's website has turned out to be a sort of semi-central place for mods, but there is only so much it can hold before the bandwidth starts hitting Andel is the pocket.

As for a pack containing all of the best mods in one big downloadable package, it won't happen for the reason given by Plastikman, in that when sets are still live they are constantly evolving and as such keeping 'one' pack would become a task in itself just to keep it up-to-date. If you took just the BRSet and the combinations of the USSet then your talking of a pack that would be in the region of 150MB, or for all the packs on the AMI website your talking over 200MB so total size would be pretty big for someone to download.

This sort of idea has been suggested before and being honest I wouldn't really like to have my stuff (BRSet) included as I have trouble making sure its totally up-to-date and easily downloaded (cheers again Plastikman) never mind keeping track of it when someone else is dealing with it. I think the best that can be done is for individual mod makers to make a playable region for the user, but, from experience it is A LOT of effort for something that won't really get totally used as I know that when I play one of my regions I tend to change things in it anyway.

MD

[uktrackbuilder_loco]

Just going to add my opinion for what it isn't worth to this debate.

As regards getting mods together on one page with a sort of global pack that allows you to download everyone's work regarding a certain region, its not going to happen one very simple reason is who is going to pay the server for that huge amount of bandwidth that is going to be used. I know that Andel once a year comes round asking for money to sustain AMI Trains and from what Andel says and what MD has pointed out thats a large sum of money for around the 200 MB width, now imagine adding in everyone else's work from the Fanpage site and the Russian site on Locomotion and you'd have two choices,.

Subscription
or Voluntary Contribution

Now neither of them are perfect models and I can see the grimace on Plastikman's face from here as I suggest someone would charge you to be able to download his work. But effectively suggesting a global host would force that question into the open.

The other reason would be that most modders find the fact that their work is hosted with others sometimes to be an incovenience for making upgrades as has been said. Rarely is something released without it being revisited and in a lot of cases updated or upgraded.
I would say that the intent here is good but the actual logistical nightmare of trying to host such a site and also the huge task of creating one global mod list might be beyond this community.

I would comment on the legal aspects as raised about the EULA etc but thats been done to death and until someone at Atari gives the go ahead for a legal alteration to the base code of the programme I would say its off limits and stays that way. No discussion about whether or not Atari would care about such an attempt we agreed when we installed this programme to abide by the EULA and as such we would create a huge mess to deal with. That would be about how all software houses would view users who wanted to crack code after instillation and I for one would not want to be part of that discussion as it would very quickly turn very unfriendly

[Black Legion]

I think I started the hall thing wrong, I've overcomplicated it... or it was just misanderstood.
I don't think an expansion needs ALL fanmade mods.
I think it's enough to make a really good (a playable, bugless, with some new vehicles, stations, possibilities. etc, like ttdeluxe to tt) pack (which I call expansion) of mods, becouse ATARI or CS will not.
I've made a list for myself what could possibly make the game more enjoyable (and what I would be able to make it in reasonable time /it's really not that long, ergo must not exceed 100 megas of data/)(if someone cares about this mentioned list I can upload it for you),and started working on it. I've seen some very nice mods around, so I thought parts of my list might be already made by other modders, then started to download all the mods I could get my hands on (apropo, Zeak made a really good pavement terrain mod which isn't avaible anymore on his site, and he said Andel will share it, but I really can't find it, if anyone could upload it or post a link I would be glad).
Right now I have 500+ megs of mods on my hdd (230 megs from amitrains, all avaible mods from SQ, Strongbow, Steve's cash, the german forum /which has a very good download section/ etc.) and I'm sorting them for weeks (and in this very moment) . 400 megs of these are trains (people really like trains), which is funny becouse trains are only a small part of my list (I only need 5-6 new locos/land type, 2-3 new wagon types per cargo, some railbuses, some metros (Strongbow's are very nice) and a full maglev mod (all of these in company colors)), so I thought I only have to make the remaining mods for myself.
Anyway I was curious about how many people are there who has the slightest intention to help me (to this point it seems nobody), (koz repainting those beautiful fanmade vehicles to company colors with PS and correcting some mods xml are really long work, and I really want to play soon (max in september... max).
I'm also curious how many users wanted to have this kind of new loco experience (although I will not share it if ready without the permission of all the original creators of the mods I used, I'll simply play with it by myself )
I hope some things are now cleared up. If not, just post, I'll answer if I can. GG for everyone.

[uktrackbuilder_loco]

I think I started the hall thing wrong, I've overcomplicated it... or it was just misanderstood.
I don't think an expansion needs ALL fanmade mods.
I think it's enough to make a really good (a playable, bugless, with some new vehicles, stations, possibilities. etc, like ttdeluxe to tt) pack (which I call expansion) of mods, becouse ATARI or CS will not.
I've made a list for myself what could possibly make the game more enjoyable (and what I would be able to make it in reasonable time /it's really not that long, ergo must not exceed 100 megas of data/)(if someone cares about this mentioned list I can upload it for you),and started working on it. I've seen some very nice mods around, so I thought parts of my list might be already made by other modders, then started to download all the mods I could get my hands on (apropo, Zeak made a really good pavement terrain mod which isn't avaible anymore on his site, and he said Andel will share it, but I really can't find it, if anyone could upload it or post a link I would be glad).
Right now I have 500+ megs of mods on my hdd (230 megs from amitrains, all avaible mods from SQ, Strongbow, Steve's cash, the german forum /which has a very good download section/ etc.) and I'm sorting them for weeks (and in this very moment) . 400 megs of these are trains (people really like trains), which is funny becouse trains are only a small part of my list (I only need 5-6 new locos/land type, 2-3 new wagon types per cargo, some railbuses, some metros (Strongbow's are very nice) and a full maglev mod (all of these in company colors)), so I thought I only have to make the remaining mods for myself.
Anyway I was curious about how many people are there who has the slightest intention to help me (to this point it seems nobody), (koz repainting those beautiful fanmade vehicles to company colors with PS and correcting some mods xml are really long work, and I really want to play soon (max in september... max).
I'm also curious how many users wanted to have this kind of new loco experience (although I will not share it if ready without the permission of all the original creators of the mods I used, I'll simply play with it by myself )
I hope some things are now cleared up. If not, just post, I'll answer if I can. GG for everyone.

I'd say judging by that amount you have pretty close to what is acceptable for Locomotion to use anyway, I'm at 633MB and had to remove files recently to get the scenario editor to scroll so maybe that is about the limit for ObjData anyway. I think you phrased it wrongly most of the modders here work to their own specifications and time scales producing work on an as and when basis in a lot of cases, unless you are a certain Chicagoan!
Maybe there is a point but like it says in the readme's the files etc are the copyright of their creator and thus if they say no thats it finis.

[andel]

And thus it was written...

I'd say no to an expansion pack - like with RTC and it's expansion pack, they were just dats... this is what an expansion pack was...

I think this has been discussed at length... and as I currently have little time on my hands, am clicking lock to save some arguments.