MegaGlest Forum
Modding and game content creation => Mods => Topic started by: Ishmaru on 27 February 2014, 01:15:02
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So out of curiosity why is there a factions only list on Wiki? What criteria is used to justify placing a mod on this list instead of main list?
Many "factions only mods", such as but not limited to, Japanese, Prax, Domineonic, to name a few are complete techtrees, that aren't really meant to be played as part of megapack, instead to be played on their own. So they should be in the techtree list. Honestly not really sure if there is a reason anymore as 99% of more recent mods are no longer distributed as single factions anymore. This was only really true for early vanilla Glest mods, which are either long gone or probably should be updated, anyways.
Also as the license of individual mods seems to be a topic of interest from time to time maybe we should add a column listing that's mods license info. I know a vast majority are BY SA or less but there are a couple that are not. (I believe MRise is not, and I swear Japaneese mod still uses some NC Assets, and Version 3 of Annex has NC music) Mostly useful for moders who want to use the assets in their own mods. Just a thought?
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I think the newly setup wiki is currently a bit of a mess (though Eliminator and others have already spent time on improving https://docs.megaglest.org/Mods/List (https://docs.megaglest.org/Mods/List) - the page I assume you are primarily referring to). Omega did a great job copying all the content from Wikia to our new wiki, but we need yet to rearrange everything there now, update it, with a primary focus on MegaGlest.
Personally I think that factions should always be wrapped up in a techtree, since that's the only way you can easily and cleanly install and use them. So existing single faction downloads should be repackaged to become complete techtrees (can be minimal, possibly based on a techtree template so that you just need to add the existing faction data and make minimal changes), and a copyright + license statement, description text and screenshot should be added. This way they'll be (almost) ready to go to the mods menu, too.
Single factions which have not been repackaged as a techtree, yet, should (in my opinion) remain on a separate list. I agree with you when you say that any readily usable single faction techtrees should not be listed under "factions", but on the techtree list.
To make things even more complex, mods, to me, are not just the same as techtrees but can be any type of contribution which is in a format MegaGlest can use. Namely complete techtrees (consisting of one or more factions, resources etc.), scenarios, tillesets and maps. As such, https://docs.megaglest.org/Mods/List (https://docs.megaglest.org/Mods/List) should either contain all of these mod types under the different headings (but this would make the page huge, so I think that's a bad way to deal with it) or - preferrably - it should be renamed to https://docs.megaglest.org/Techtrees/List (https://docs.megaglest.org/Techtrees/List) or just https://docs.megaglest.org/Techtrees (https://docs.megaglest.org/Techtrees) and additional pages should be added for the other mod types, with links to these pages on the Mods page (and no actual mods there).
Finally, we also need to track versions and point out which of these mods (and ideally which version of it, too) is currently available on the mod menu.
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The Mods/List page has been around for a long time (I converted it to the current format in 2011!). Several of the factions in the factions table were released at a time when it was common to release just the faction folder (which would have to be added to an existing techtree). That, combined with the fact that the tilesets/maps/etc included columns of the techtrees table made the faction-only mods unfeasible to go into the same table.
I agree with Tomreyn that all downloads should come as complete techtrees and never expected to be put into an existing techtree (which, I believe, causes incompatibilities for multiplayer).
So with that expectation for future mods, I think we could just go with one Techtrees/List page. Then we could perhaps (in the future, if time allows), have a separate, *unrelated* Factions/List page that lists factions but only offers information and is not meant to be a download center. The factions would then link to their individual pages (such as the ones we have for UNATF (https://docs.megaglest.org/UNATF), Tech (https://docs.megaglest.org/Tech), and Phorin (https://docs.megaglest.org/Phorin). I'm thinking we could use a bot that parses XMLs to create templates for factions, units, and upgrades (in the style of the UNATF pages).
But, yeah, in the meantime, I think we should just combine the two tables. The difference is fairly negligible right now (and while we're fixing links, perhaps we can quickly throw factions into a barebones copy of the magitech techtree).