Hello people, especially modders.
As you may know, the next stretch goal of the kickstarter in "Full mod support".
There is something less than 25k to go so I'm pretty confident about us reaching it.

The point of this topic is to gather data on what you, modders, want to have for the brand new Divinity Engine that we will release with DOS2.

There are a lot of data here and there but it could be great to have everything in the same topic. It'll be easier for us at Larian to see what we can do and prioritize. We have already ideas on what we want to tweak from the tool we are now using but at some point, we will, like I've said in the AMA, ask you, people of the community, what you want to have.

So? What's up?

PS: Bring modders who are posting on DOS1 forum on this topic too! Thanks.

-- SUGGESTIONS/IDEAS --
-- EDITOR --

- Drop-in friendly
- Include generic version of systems used
- Multi-mod support
- Unlocked main campaign
- Fix Reload stats
- Make cheat commands works
- Undo on terrain manipulation
- Terrain prefabs
- Standalone mod template that contains the important scripts and everything set up for modding
- Edit and add talents
- Custom loot drops
- Crafting recipes
- Crafting abilities/skills
- Don't rely on 3rd party for packing and unpacking
- More Flexible Atmosphere Control
- Visual Effects Editor
- Script Debugging
- 3dsmax export/import
- Example max rigged meshes
- Mod load orders
- Standard format for textures
- More friendly quest editor
- Hotkeys
- Better Wall Editor
- Models/textures viewer inside editor
- Allow users to save and load how they set up their editor windows
- Remember the last position of all the windows
- Respawn timer's on encounters
- Source files (.lsm) available for materials
- More prefabs
- Easy to manipulate stats
- Support open file formats
- Ability to increase party size
- Ability to create a custom UI
- Custom Races/Classes at Character Creation
- Global and local music
- Import character face pictures
- Increase the limit of mods the game can run
- Easy and clear triggers
- Easy to use subroutines
- Reset the level so you can try things over and over again
- Terrain resize
- Ability to merge source files
- Plugin support

-- OTHER --
- Video and text tutorials
- Editor wiki
- Modding contest with prizes
- Youtube serie
- Mods website (Nexus?)
- Release the mod tools along with the alpha/beta versions of the game
- Online database of assets

I've got a rather long list of stuff I'll send your way later.

But the #1 most important thing I would say is the editor should be as drop-in friendly as possible.

Include a generic version of all (or the most practical) systems used in the game.

That way when someone downloads the editor, their mod is ready to go even if it's just three characters thrown on an empty map. In the D:OS 1 version, having to add stuff to the _Start goal, alignments files, and things like that are a huge roadblock for a lot of people. Especially if someone wants to use some of the commonly used gameplay aspects of D:OS like waypoints, attitude, shovels, mining, etc. Just getting those to work right now involves either rewriting the script from scratch or extracting and cleaning up the MAIN files.

Simple multi-mod support where people can activate multiple mods that affect the main campaign at once, instead of requiring people to merge mods.

Unlocked main campaign that isn't blocked by developer rights. You can't edit existing quests or creatures in D:OS except by editing their stats.

Fix "Reload stats," and make the "cheat" commands work.

For the love of muffins please make undo work for terrain manipulation. Also, a bigger change, but being able to select terrain and copy and paste it or move it somehow would be awesome, though I could see that being difficult. And if that's possible, then "terrain prefabs" would be really useful. Like, you could plop down a meadow with grass and flower meshes and good looking dirt and grass textures. More prefabs in general always help speed up level design.

Standalone mod template that contains the important scripts and everything set up for modding.

Let us edit and add talents. And an in-editor way to edit character or item stats would be cool. More freedom on the kind of stats that can be tied to items would be nice. And the ability to add new item types (I wanted to add an item type above legendary, but couldn't figure it out. Seemed possible, but just wasn't able to get it.)


Do you just want ideas for the engine itself, or for how Larian could help the community in general? Thoughts on the latter (I can delete these if you want this just for the engine.)

Both video and text tutorials. And for longer videos, marking the times for when you talk about specific things can be useful for referencing later. Also, filling an editor wiki with detailed information could be really useful.

I think doing a modding contest with prizes would be a great way to motivate people. You could have a contest for standalone mods, and one for best mod for the main campaign (maybe best added quest? And/or a best gameplay mod.)

One final thought: I think the most accepted spelling of "one who mods" is "modder." Just putting that out there :P Thanks a bunch norD!

First thing I've asked when I got hired, haha


I want everything

Thanks! I'll fix.

I think a great example of a good tool set is Blizzards Galaxy Map Editor.
It includes both logical scripting as well as the ability to import custom script code.

As for dealing with Dialogs - a good place to look is Shadow Runs Dialog Tree creation structure. Where it easily allows you to decide the variables on what Dialog to present as well as what options to show based on the requirements which need to be filled by the stats.

Being able to mix the best qualities of these two tool sets would create an incredibly powerful tool for users who are both new content creation as well as professionals who can create wonders with it.

Please make it possible to make custom loot drops, such as weapons/armors/item and the creation for new and creative crafting recipes along with the the ability to create some new cool abilities/skills that may alter ones play through with a mod

+1 to the following:









Provide us all the tools we need
It's odd that we were reliant on Norbyte's packing and unpacking tool just to be able to get off the ground with modding. These things should be built into the editor or released with it.

More Flexible Atmosphere Control

It seems a number of us have been interested in having day/night cycles. There are some things you could do to make it a LOT easier for us. Please give us a way to "kick" the atmosphere trigger after we change its setting so that we don't have to do unholy source magic to make the camera move, or be forced to delay the transition until a character moves, etc. Right now, if you change the atmosphere value for a trigger, it doesn't being to visually update until the camera moves.

I also think it would be terrific if a level could be associated with a series of atmospheres without using atmosphere triggers. In this case, the entire level could be told to transition to a new atmosphere and individual atmosphere triggers could still be used if you want to override an atmosphere in a particular zone.

Visual Effects Editor

It looks like there is a missing plugin for creating/previewing visual effects. Why did we never get this? I'm not talking about the material editor, rather the mushroom cloud that unfortunately really blows up with pressing it.

Script Debugging

It would be awsesome to have a more fully functional IDE for Osiris (breakpoints, code indexing and cross-referencing, etc). For starters, it would be helpful to improve debug logging to be able to pass in formatted arguments so we can log values of variables and such to a file for debugging.

Ok I'll admit I never really tried DOS1 editor, but one thing I'm curious about is import and export of assets. Was it a thing in DOS1?
If not, having a way to both import and export, say, a character and either all his animations or a specific set of animations would go a long way toward being able to customize said animations, add different body types, character models, etc... Or even make machinimas for potential cutscenes/trailers.
FBX would then be the most obvious format.

This is not strictly speaking an editor feature but more of a tool that could help people produce great things

What I want to see? ;P

Don't use *rad game tools GR2 binary format* give us the actual 3dsmax export/import scripts and example max rigged mesh for character, weapons and monsters, and allow load orders (aka, mods load one after another, latest changes are overwritten to create merged end-result.. Result= more than 1 *mod* (not campaign) usable). Use FBX or actually accepted standard formats. Don't reverse the darn channel orders in your dds TEXTURES (especially in normal maps), the standard format is *RGBA* <3

Ask yourself this.
How much skill is needed to *add 1 new weapon* that properly drops as loot in the loot tables, can be used by a character and has proper stats and effects.

How much skill is needed to add a new monster with new animation/mesh/AI/Sound

And try to fix these modding problems with ease of use features and *proper templates* (templates meaning, source MAX files so that we can see rigging and grouping and everything else that needs to be done to add a new creature into D:OS). As long as modders can not create new monsters, or re-add them from their Skyrim mods, activity is likely going to be near zero.

The quest editor/creator needs to be friendly, similar to how you guys say you've redone the dialogue editor. If someone wants to set up a 'pick up apple' fetch quest, that shouldn't take hours of time to do with lots of excessive writing that doesn't even have to do with the dialogue.

I'd like the ability to import 3D models into the game engine to be straightforward with a lot of documentation to help new model builders and their efforts to bring their own creations to the engine (this means defining what 'weight' means, the proper way that models should be rigged, how animations are defined, and etc.)

What would be cool (not required, but an idea) is to have an internal scripting interface that modders can interact with and be able to create their own tools (and share them; i.e. custom wizards) and automate tasks (re. click on a custom button on the toolbar and it does something).

1. Hotkey's! Hotkey's in a program make everything easy and allow you to work fast, like changing from moving terrain up to moving terrain down with 1 keyboard press makes life so much easier. Also make a hotkey layout!

2. Wall and house thing is pretty buggy right now, probably already fixed. (Once had to delete the entire file that stored the buildings to save my map and redo all buildings)

3. Ask users if they are sure the want to delete the terrain. (Or make undo work on it) You can't Ctrl+Z it and if you forgot to save things before you are forced to just exit without saving.

4. For tools that do the same like the terrain edit tools (raising, flatting, lowering, smoothing) make the right click options in 1 screen that just changes when you select another tool. Also replace the numbers with sliders (would be awsome)

6. Not sure if you can do it now somehow, but if you paint like grass or rocks in the instance painter I would really like to edit them separately after they have been placed.

7. View models/textures... inside the editor!

8. Allow users to save and load how they set up their editor windows. Also remember the last position of all the windows.

9. Allow editing of spells, items,... inside the editor.

10. And off course an entire youtube serie where you show how you did make like the first hour of the orginal game from start.

Will probably come up with some more later, will post them here.

Dear NorD

May we please have an easier to use editor? as everyone suggests above those are all great ideas. Think of it from a basic gamer standpoint someone with zero knowledge of game design. Make a tool with easy to use drag and drop. Also a user friendly map builder.

Would love the editing of spells (or creation of new ones!) and items within the editor. Also an easy to use NPC maker where you can chose if they are a basic NPC, A merchant, A companion type or Enemy.

May we pretty please have an option within the editor for our own games to set respawn timer's on encounters? I know quite a few are against any sort of respawning. but I don't think it will hurt anyone if it's an option.

Thank you.

Super cool people, thanks for all these comments.
I read everything and will talk about all the stuff here with the right person when the time will come for sure. Don't hesitate to add stuff.


This is goal #1 yes.

It'd also be nice to have the source files (.lsm) available for the materials.
Only the compiled GLSL/HLSL code is in the DOS packages, so you have to reverse-engineer how the builtin ones work.

Funny, I was thinking about this earlier today, but wasn't sure how to share my ideas.

I suggest getting a copy of NWN 1 and 2 and poking around in those toolsets. Check out the features and how they work. Check out to property editor and the scripting. I don't want nor expect some perfect 1:1 copy of the Aurora/Electron tools. Instead I'd like you to take inspiration from those editors and really cater to the modding community of that game. There is incredible talent in that community and if you entice them with your engine you can have something huge on your hands.

The original Divinity editor had a lot of potential in that regard, but it felt limited. I'm glad you've fixed things up and added some features. You're almost there, just need more freedom and ease of use in your editor. Documentation is always great, but wizards (not the magical kind), prefabs, and easily accessible properties settings on entities really go long way at getting amateurs interested.

Pretty much, you want a new user to be able to make a simple, basic mod with a few clicks. Meanwhile, you have some advanced ways for an experienced user to have complete control of the module.

1. Tutorials and easy setup.
2. Have the main game editable. Add assets, quests, items easily.
3. Be able to make own maps.
4. Easy to manipulate stats and other gameplay tweaks.
5. Whoever is host, custom files are sent automatically to those that join that host for that session. No fuss to muss.
6. Workshop.

A good editing tool will have mods available to download day one, see that other leading game. Small tweaks sure, but those are great tweaks to enhance gameplay. Firm believer that modding results have to happen quickly to build modding momentum in the community. Total conversations are longshots, in the meantime small hitters to add to the games start-up list will be more common to be finished and use by the players.

Example of mods:
1. Combat Speed mod.
2. Move Speed mod.
3. Harder Sneaking mod.
4. Higher difficulty mod.
5. Treasure Hunt mod.
6. New Evil Tower mod with quest line.
7. Homestead mod.
8. New Skin mods.
9. New Item mods.
10. Better Crafting mods.
11. Enhanced Inventory mod.
12. Enhanced Skill Bar mod.
13. Higher Rez Mod.
14. Nude Mod.
15. Add Rocket launchers mod.

To me the blueprint is out there and that is how it goes and every so often you'll get a Total Conversion mod. Everybody ahead of release dreams of the great american mod, I'm going to do one etc... And most never happen and the ones that do take a lot of time, most players are looong gone. So I aim lower with modding actual main game with quick hitters. We can pick and choose from a list of those to enhance the game.

Yep, absolutely critical to building momentum.

For DO:S 1 the lack of ability to easily change MAIN and the lack of ability import certain types of visuals neutered any potential.

Well I can't say I'm too much into userfriendlyness, but mere power. But I have nothing against it ofc. ^^
But, as said, more important for me is WHAT the tools are capable of.

So within conjunction this means as few hardcoded and as much modifiably stuff as possible, please!

Just an example that instantly crosses my mind...

- attributes/talents/skills... let us set hand on all the aspects... including their number, effects, names...
(Many people wanted to touch aspects like the cooldown reduction INT offered or add something similar to the other attributes. Let it happen!)


Also let scripting be open, don't just limit it to presets. And if feasible support open file formats like *.OBJ.

Hey there! Just backed the game. Admittedly was waiting until mod support was near-guaranteed... it's the one thing I most excited about for D:OS2, even though it's an amazing game in and of itself.

D:OS' editor kept me from heavily modding the game. Part of it was when I came... only a few months back did I start opening up the editor, and found its "out of box" functionality wasn't friendly. I decided to focus on some other games because of it. Very glad to hear the #1 priority is this usability. While some in the thread have stated how easy it should be, I'm not sure I'm in agreement. It should be friendly, but I don't want the ability to create complex stories and systems stifled by something 'easy-to-use.' There's a balance, and I believe you'll walk it well

That aside, I'll make a few suggestions based on some 'dream' mods I might want to create:

DM Mode

With only 3 days left on the clock, I don't think we'll hit 2 mil. I could be surprised. But, short of that, I'd love to be able to reproduce a DM-type mode using the Editor. This might be asking much, for a feature that was a tier in the KS... but I did say I was dreaming.

For this to work, a few things would need to be exposed to the Editor:

1) Fine scripting system.

Using a set of scripts, we could generate a 'character' that is able to control more than the typical. Would probably add this as an additional 'Race' in character creation, and limit it so only one player could occupy that race at a time. Clearly would not be as smooth an experience as a Larian-developed DM mode, but could replicate a lot of the functionality.

2) Ability to increase party size.

This is going to be requested a lot, because people want persistant universe. I agree, I'd love that - and it'd be a great business move given the lack of anything filling that niche (short of, perhaps, Shards).

But for a "DM Mode," it would be ideal to add a single additional character to the party - a total of 5 - to allow the DM to occupy an additional slot rather than take away a player's slot.

3) Ability to create a custom UI

While the DM's abilities could be created as additional SKILLS in their own custom skill tree, it would be far better to create an interface which allows them to plop down creatures, immediately invoke script functions (or even write them?) and create levels on-the-fly. This latter ability I'm not even going to list, as that's asking for a lot. But, dreaming!


Star Wars TC

Everyone loves Star Wars! D:OS2 will have many systems already in place to allow an 'easy' (hah) total conversion. A few editor abilities here would go a long way:

1) Custom Races/Classes at Character Creation

In NWN/2, it was possible to create custom races and classes but required a lot of scripting workarounds. It'd be GREAT to implement new races and classes with full skill trees and effects right inside the editor.

For this, I'm talking DATA and not ART. For Art...

2) Simple import/export of character models

If I want to create a Wookiee to-size, it'd be better to import this model and allow its creation at the character creation menu than fake it with scripting. This means we should either be able to import directly from 3DSMax, or the Editor comes with a built-in or easily-accessible converter.

If you don't want us EXPORTING your assets, you could use a unique file format for your game assets, but a separate filetype that is compatible with the converter for imported assets.

3) Full editor manipulation of item data and art

This is more of a given - most mods are going to want this. But figured I'd note it

4) Global and local music

It'd be great for this feature to be taken care of with a drop-down in the editor, rather than placing a script function in the level. It should still be possible, however, to create a script override function for sudden, forced music changes. These should automatically revert on leaving a level, though, or after a certain period of time.

------

I'll stop here for now Hope this is helpful!

I am no modder but I just wanted to post this as reminder.
Way back at the DOS1 KS Swen mentioned something I just want to refresh once more.
As they showed the power of the DOS1 editors they used, they recreated the starting village of the very first Larian game Divine Divinity with the whole dungeon below the village.

He said they do NOT plan to make any remake but that they would support fans if they would like to work on such a monumental task as DOS1 and DD used basically the same scripts (as hard that is to believe after that many years to me but I am no coder.).

Who knows? Maybe Larian might be interested to support a fan based project, similar to the 'Black Mesa' fan remake from Valve for an anniversary edition of DD one day.

Swen said they could supply such a project with the scripts from DD and I am sure they could help a bit with their expertise in project management.
At least that would be a chance for Larian not to make excellent games but also 'pollinate' the indie industry with some additional fresh blood who could work as supportive team for Larian or aid even other small studios with their expertise down the road.

Larian could even profit from it with some future add-ons to their staff when the project ever gets wrapped up and/or could create some co-subsidiary or affiliate department for the future.

Just some thoughts in case there are still people which would be interested in such a mega project.

If it's not to much to ask, allow us to import character face pictures. That probably requires an overhaul of the system you originally used, but you'd probably want that done for the long term anyway (I think?)

I also am going to second the person that talked about looking at the NWN 1 and 2 editors. They were pretty user friendly. You might also want to look at the Dungeon Master mode if the Game Master stretch goal gets fulfilled as well.

Item editing sucked in the original. Also the contents of chests and such. That was kind of weird, again, look at how NWN's editor handled that.

One thing (as a customer to modders) that I'd like to see is if there is a hosting website for various mods. Since I haven't created any game mods myself, I don't know how big those files can be. If they go over a certain file size, then perhaps we can use bit torrent to share the files until they are no longer in high demand. The website would only host the torrent file until a week or two goes by where most of the download traffic will have ended, then there can be a download link for the mod directly from the file server. You could still leave the torrent file link active just incase people would rather share that way.

I think this would be a lot easier for customers as we wouldn't have to find discussion threads or individual websites. The author of the mod would also be able to upload a few screenshots and a brief description of the mod. Zeldaclassic does something similar, although those files are pretty small to download. Zelda classic is a mod based off the original NES game.

Maybe the Nexus could be approached to host files, as well as Steam workshop. I know a lot of people aren't into Steam, so a OriginSin2Nexus could be the solution.

Well, I do know they had a Nexus for OS1, so I don't see why they wouldn't have one for OS2.

Good to see people suggesting the import/export of assets.

Maybe the ability for us to edit stuff straight down to the in-game sound and texture files. I know modders from Skyrim have done texture overhauls as well as fully voiced custom NPCs, and what with users asking for full voice acting (ha), an eager modder could of course create that, themselves.

Release the mod tools along with the alpha/beta versions of the game. This will give us time to learn the toolset, begin producing some custom content, and most importantly, provide hands on feedback!

As mentioned earlier allow us to create and modify items, but I would also like to add that can you allow us to even add crafting recipes in addition to having a plane in the editor to change and add items.

Also would it be possible to allow the create of new buffs and debuffs with the new spells and maybe create interaction between the new effects?

I have only used the Bioware Dragon Age Origins Toolset, so I don't have a lot of experience, but I have developed a few adventures using it and it's ok, not great, ok. I like being able to create a mod that adds creatures, dialogue, new areas to explore. They included the source of pretty much the entire game, which turned out to be a great resource on "How to". Really looking forward to D:OS2 editor!

Ok, I just gathered what was proposed here and updated my 1st post so it's easier to see the "big lines" of what you guys are asking for.
Keep 'em going!

I've never created a mod before but tinkered around a bit in some game's toolset.

My thoughts:

- increase the limit on the total no. of mods a game can run
If Larian can't do this, then no matter how much awesome content is created, a lot of it won't be used. I know Torchlight2 has a 10 mod limit but I've also heard Elderscrolls has like 200++?

First I have a question, if I do fiddle with DOS editor, will it be useful training for DOS2 editor ?

In the editor, I'd like to be able to change game assets, for example change colors for the ground.
Or can you make it easy to modify assets by opening the files with a text editor of sorts ?
Will you be adding new assets after the game is out ? New terrain, new walls, new theme-based stuff (Candy walls, Candy weapons and armors !)

If I work on a map on DOS:EE, will I be able to import it in DOS2 editor ? Maybe not everything, but part of it (terrain mostly) ?

Multi mod support has already been added to the list, but make it simple too.
As simple as copy/paste a file in a directory please
Or why not an interface in the game menu where you can simply see all mods in some given website and just check those you want to download and use.

Maybe it's part of "custom ui" and "adding and editing talents" - but what I would like:
being able to...
- change texts in the gui, like changing names of skills or character classes.
- add new character and creature models I've created (maybe this is possible already?)
- add new items (with a custom imported image, effects and description)

I would say yes to some extend. I don't think the editor will be 100% different. But I also don't know how far we will go with that, so maybe?


Probably not sadly. Things will change too much in the code and in a lot of other stuff "behind".

My biggest stumbling block with the original D:OS editor was the lack of a ready-made player character creator. When I realized that I had to reverse-engineer the one in the main game and to adapt it for the (small) campaign I had in mind, my brain shut down and I never mustered up the willpower to continue working on it. Maybe I have missed something, but I haven't found any tutorials on this back in the day, either...

It would be great if, instead of making an entire level with custom GUI elements floating in the air, we could just say: this module needs 1 (2, 3, 4...) player character(s) of level 1 (2, 3, 4...), with following races, "class" and equipment templates, and appearance options available to select from. If we could then use this character creator in the editor to generate a bunch of legitimate PCs and swap them out during testing, it would be great.

Obviously, the new editor needs to be simply and intuitively designed. We shouldn't have to look up a video tutorial to build a wall, for example. But I'm sure Larian is well aware of that.

The only big thing I can say for CERTAIN that the editor needs, specifically, is a robust dialog editor. Please, please, please look to the dialog editor in Neverwinter Nights' Toolset for an example of how to do it.

For this editor to be the best that it can be you need to include:

Assets

1. Publicly shared assets

Have an online database of assets, user ratings, and an easy way to include them in the projects. (including models, animations, music and sound effects)

2. In engine asset modifications

Include a way to change the assets and doodads, and to paint with them. The painting tool should have a controllable randomizer for size and density, and a controllable density (as a minimum).

3. Animation and rigging

Perhaps cloth and hair rendering and materials is a bit much to ask for, but we at least need a way to attach animations to models. An animation editor for people to share animations and a rigging tool to attach the assets to these animations.

Programming Tools

4. Triggers

Easy and clear triggers that can be set up in the world map with a large pool of conditions to chose from. Even conversations with NPCs should be based on a trigger system.

Example: (asset 076: on player interaction, do subroutine "conversation 013") or (on player interaction, condition inventory "item 023" and "skill 011", do subroutine "conversation 013")

5. Easy to use subroutines

After a trigger condition has been met and a specific subroutine has been called, we need a clear and easy way to manage, edit, view, and understand the subroutine.

We need to be able to graphically create a flow chart with operators between events.
Example: event 1 conversation.
conversation option 1, conversation option 2, conversation option 3, operator test inventory item 011: conversation option 4

6. Debugger

An easy way to check our subroutines and triggers.

FWIW this is pretty much how it works now unless I'm misunderstanding you.

You do have to type these things in yourself, so I could see sort of a wizard allowing people to get some basic functionality in without touching the script directly.

Would very definitely like to see a more robust art import process that includes the ability to bring in custom rigged meshes and animations made in outside 3D packages. This is my own primary interest in the editor.

Friendliness to small mods seems really important (this includes a lot of things that have already been mentioned vis-a-vis mod limits, ease of use, not having mods tied into the main campaign, etc.). The DOS editor in its current state seems to say "who's going to bother installing a mod that adds a small new location, or a few new items? Go big or go home!"

More thorough documentation. This sort of goes beyond just tutorials -- I can imagine there isn't going to be a tutorial on every little thing the editor can do. But a thoroughly documented editor might be achievable, and would go a very long way to making the editor viably usable by modders. This approach would make tutorials more suitable for just teaching the basics of using the editor, with documentation handling the more advanced features.

Forgot this one in my previous post but what really is annoying that after you test combat or pick up objects in you level npc will stay dead or objects in your inventory. You should be able to reset the level so you can try things over and over again.

Like some people above said and for emphasis, please use the Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 editors and use them as a basis.

And also please make it so that games can be made for online multiplayer, sorta like mini MMOs (dunno what else to call them).

This is something I asked myself! We really need that ^__^

It would also be great if you could resize a terrain.

PLUGIN SUPPORT

I'm not sure this has been suggested before, but in the Neverwinter Nights 2 editor you can add plugins to the editor that expand the functionality beyond the original design. This is massively powerful as it allows the fans to mod the modding tools.

There is no way you will be able to add all the functionality that the fans would want, but by adding plugin support you don't have too. They will gleefully do it for you.

Okay here's part of my big list:

1. Translated String Keys -

They are extremely easy to accidentally overwrite and there is no undo function.


Journal entries, the quest log, and corresponding TSK entries are a huge pain to deal with. Perhaps some sort of plugin could be made for the TSK which can auto populate the quest log file based on the TSK names under "Journal".




2. Keyword Editor stuff:

The "Recent Files" list does not persist when you close the window.

Conditions and Speaker entries - The first character in a dialog based on the call StartTwoSpeakerDialog is defined as character 0 for the purpose of conditions. But every where else it's referenced it's called 1, specifically the speaker entry list.


The call StartFiveSpeakerDialog works, but the keyword editor only supports 4 speakers.


Suggestion: Have an option to automatically generate local flag conditions for each node based on the name of the node so that they do not appear again after picking them. Obviously this would not be appropriate for all dialogs so it would need to be an option.




3. Interface Issues:

All menus that use the "red pin" functionality to populate entries between interfaces are incredibly annoying.


Some sidebar/script entries are drop lists, others are typed in. I think they should all be drop lists. Example: Alignment field on the sidebar grabs the list from the alignments file displays that drop list. Same for Treasure tables.


Stats entries - It does have a nice drop list, but without actually knowing what each stat selection does it's pretty useless. There should be a way to see what the stats are without whipping out the excel files.

Have a reference with the names of talents, abilities attributes, and skills. Along the same lines as stat entries, when you need to reference an ability in a call it's a huge pain because some of the under the hood names you guys use don't line up with the display name. Changing the under the hood name might be too much of a problem but just post a translation guide


Books - When you open a book, the first left hand page is always empty. Maybe realistic but it's annoying when you want to display two pages. There's no way to be sure the player will actually flip to the second page.

DisplayName - Can you make it so accent marks like � display properly when you mouse over characters and items? These work for books and journal files but not much else.

Make the editor remember your settings such as where certain pannels are located and what size they are. Add a reset to default option for when you break it.




4. Issues with various calls

Cameras and "CameraActivate" - This is a really neat call for creating scenes in mods, but the functionality is massively limited by it being timed only. A call that is also switchable and can use cameras would be great.

CharacterFreeze and playing animations for the Player character -
Getting the PCs to play animations via a call is a huge hassle.




5. Atmosphere and lighting.

I assume you guys know about atmosphere settings not changing if the player character isn't moving.


Add the ability to make light sources on the lightbulb panel global so you can set them on and off stage.




6. Modding specific functionality -

Ability to rename levels and the mod itself. Perhaps some sort of batch file could rename all the objects? I've seen the files and know it's a pain.



7. The instance painter.

This tool is really slick for creating maps fast, but it doesn't paint on the AI grid so it's not that useful.





Just a few questions I have:

What the hell does CheckoutSelectedObject() do?

What the hell does "Render Channel" do in the sidebar?


World Map renderer - how did you guys make all the roofs invisible? did you just move them off screen and take the picture?


Is there any functional reason for unchecking "stub" in the keyword editor?



**Obviously some of this might be invalid now since I'm working on the last published editor.





I think you can do this it's just a pain (common theme :P).
Story Editor>Reload story + cntl + r. The former resets globals, the latter resets everything else.

Well not EVERYTHING, as previously mentioned reload stats doesn't work.

I know you plan to have a much more robust tool set, but look at Sword Coast Legends
Their tool set is real user friendly.

So don't know if we can get something similar with everything you plan to include.

Since GM Mode will be included into the game, is it possible to run machine learning over your campaign so you can select an area, put tags/inventory groups on it and automatically fill a house with assets?
Or create asset-filled area on the fly?

A strong GM mode that isn't a gimmicky game mode that gets boring after a couple hours is going to be quite something to pull off. They'll need systems that can let you create environments and generate dialogs and script quickly, or else what's the point of the GM mode if you basically have to create the campaign ahead of time and then just control monsters or something small like that.

To be honest, I think $150,000 is at least half of what they need to really do a GM mode justice, though some of the benefits for the GM will come from the mod support stretch goal, too. We'll see how it turns out, but Larian really has their work cut out for them.

One thing really needed for a GM mode is awesome, dynamic traps. Not just like, landmines. Those are boring, but slowly spinning waves of fire, rooms that change size, things that fire projectiles, etc. But to be really great, these things need to interact with combat well, so they stop and only briefly activate after everyone has completed their turn, so getting stuck in turn-based mode isn't insta-death if you're in the middle of a trap.

On the other hand, a "real" P&P campaign needs some preparation too :p

But yes, obviously it's going to be something tricky to pull off. I hope they'll be up to the challenge !

The Neverwinter Nights series did just fine without creating environments on the fly.

Maybe some scripts or plugins for procedural terrain/town/dungeon generation, so that we can get the next level or map out much quicker. Would be especially handy if we are using GM mode.

As long as they don't do like in Sword Coast Legends with random generated content ONLY. More options is always better than none. So procedural would be a nice plus, but please larian, make sure we can create things from scratch too.

Oh, definitely. I would prefer this as an addon or plugin. They plan on having a lot of stuff made from scratch anyway if the old editor is any hint.

yah I am leaning toward SCL's tool box interface not necessarily what they are doing with it.

Editor should have:

1) Ability to merge source files
- Example: you could merge two "more spells" mods and remove spell that are too similar
- you could fix mods which don't work together


2) Ability to make configuration menu for the mod if modder wants it.
- Example: "better loot" mod could have sliders for rare items drop probability

I would like to see:

1) Ability to have custom armor slots and armor types

1. For user-friendlyness try to look at games like little big planet, Mario Maker and Disney Infinity. These tools are made so simple a kid could use them. I'm not saying that the editor should be simplified to these extremes, but it's a nice source of inspiration when idiot-proofing the editor.

2. I also suggest an official mod manager. There is nothing that inspires mod makers more than seeing their mods being played by the community. An official mod manager with community updates, rating systems, download client and load order management would help bringing modding to the masses. For inpiration check out the nexus mod manager http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/modmanager/? or mod organizer http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/1334/? for skyrim.

3. An interactive beginner tutorial in the editor itself, where you get to make your own quest mod through objectives. It think it is key that this feature allows creativity by the user. For instance you start out by being asked to make a house with at least 4 wall, two chair, a table and a door. Then you make an npcs who with some dialog options, thats sends the npc to kill three creatures of their choice.. and so on... The important thing is that the player feel they are making something unique even though they are following a tutorial.

Thanks for Being so awesome to the community NorD!

+1 to plugin support!

Indeed. I'd welcome more friendly uses of the tool, probably to be associated with the GM mode. Though I would think those would operate outside of the editor.

But yeah make sure to keep all the powerful under the hood stuff included. Took me about 6 months, but I've got a pretty good handle on it now and I'd hate to lose the full range of options.

So long as they continue to release to us the editor that they use themselves, we should be safe there.

So along those lines, I will add a big request NOT to give us a simplified version just for the community, but rather please maintain the original goal of providing us with the editor that you yourselves use.

Serious Skeletons?

Maybe even a small village full of them. Well, "full".

I know I already said it, but can't help, just have to say it again... the capabilities are the most important fact. Every gameplay aspect should be able to be tinkered with.

The editor I would like to see is one that scales in complexity according to the user needs. If someone wants to create a very generic story with procedural generated stuff and not much depth in npc dialogues and stuff, he/she can do it with not much knowledge in computing. On the other hand, if someone wants to spend weeks micromanaging every aspect of his/her campaign with lots of twists and dialogues, custom content and scripting, he/she can as well. So everyone is happy.

Indeed. I'm looking at this now as Divinity is the core ruleset in a d20 game. It could actually result in modders making different systems for the game, which I'm really intrigued in if we get the ability to do that.

For those who haven't watched the stream where they talked about the editor, check it out:

http://www.twitch.tv/larianstudios/v/18338554

They're looking into: making terrain generation more efficient (adding textures to terrains with 1 move instead of the dozens you need now), undo terrain, and terrain prefabs/moving terrain, letting multiple people work on a map at the same time, improving the wall tool and let you generate roofs more easily, and giving modders the generic files for making new models and whatnot.

What you can now do: resize terrain, have a brand new dialog editor that visually sorts the dialog (is so great! See 13 minutes in for that) and will include various dialog templates

Regarding the GM mode, it seems like their focus is the ability to add things on the fly and change basic parameters, but not necesarilly making wide sweeping changes, and removing things and taking control of monsters will be more difficult because it might wreak havoc with the scripts. And Swen was throwing the word "template" around a lot -- and here's the kicker: He wants modders to be able to create templates and tools for the GM mode so we could easily plug in quests, creatures, items, and whole systems (like, for example, ressurect tools, tools for the GM to manipulate the mod in general), and GMs could get these tools from steam workshop/nexus. And I think the most important thing for the GM mode is to let modders do most of the work, but to set up this malleability well.

I probably missed some things, and the video is interesting overall, so go watch it!

I don't know if this is already doable with the D:OS editor, but a way for the editor to convert a level into a map that you can bring up in-game. You know press 'm' and you get a map with moving dots as characters.
Maybe have the editor convert terrains and walls into a mapmode, or something.

A few more to add to the pile:

1. Fix the issue of importing scripts and other assets/resources from crashing the editor.

2. When you are editing the "script list" on an NPC, it's impossible to manipulate around other menus on the editor. Make it so you can use the other windows so you can find the triggers and items you need to add to the script list.



The mini map has that, so they could probably bring the same functionality to the main map.

It's sad, we had so much problem with the stream at that time that we spent 40 minutes trying to get me on it from Quebec and it didn't worked in the end...
We had so much stuff to talk about but I guess we will give you more update in the future.

I'll have a personal look at all the tools you told be to have a look at. I never used NWN tools myself so I guess that'll be great to see.


I've used everyone of those and I can understand why you post them as examples for user-friendlyness but keep in mind that 2 of theses are from 2D platformer and 1 is for super grid placement (mario maker) with a pretty narrow range of possibilities. The other is 3D but everything is also placed on a grid and there is no terrain manipulation, texturing and other "big" stuff to do. You can do cool stuff in Disney Infinity but it's still pretty "simple".
We will never have an editor that is that user-friendly because creating a game like D:OS demands a lot of freedom and manipulation. On the other hand, we still want to make it easier to use and understand.


Well, for a lot of "you out there" it seems that it was pretty much the big problem no? The tool we use is NOT super friendly for non-profesionnal. If we would release the exact tool that we use I'm pretty sure we would get a lot of complains.

To put it another way, I'd say the concern is we don't want to lose the power of things like charscripts and full access to Osiris. I wouldn't want to be limited to only a "quest editor" sitting between me and the script.

Basically add on top of the editor some simplified interfaces and utilities to get people going along the lines of what has been requested. Powerful enough to make an entire mod out of if need be.

But don't remove access to things that are complicated, just provide easier up-front options for the majority.

That could be done with a simplified interface with the most common functions, and then an advanced mode with everything.

This sounds like a good idea.
There are a few functions that will be used very often, while others are used very rarely. This fits to my experience with computers in general and the RPG maker2000 (The only game creation program I have used.)

The RPGmaker was 2D and simple (SNES look), but even somebody who knows nothing about programming (like me) was able to create a good game.

NWN toolset was pretty easy to understand even though it could be tedious for people not into programming at all. I think they can make a toolset with many layers, from a very simple one for people who only want to concentrate on dialogues and story to a complex one for those who want to program triggers and such. A multi layered mod tool would be nice.

A bit like photoshop. Very accessible for people who only want to improve their holiday pictures and super powerful for designers who can create awesome stuff with it.

That is precisly what I'm hoping for. I simply don't have the time to learn a complicated programmers tool, but if it's simple to begin with and I can get some ideas up and running fairly fast, I might invest some time in it down the line and learn some of the more complicated stuff.

Yes, that's what I was getting at, SniperHF. After Larian does their best to improve the user-interface and workflow, I don't want them to cut features from what they release to the community if some features remain inherently complicated. Swen has always marketed the editor as "the same thing we use to make the game" and I'd like it to stay that way.

If you want really simple look at Xcos: It is a simulation software that lets you connect code blocks with each other.
These blocks openly show their inputs and outputs color coded - red for trigger i/o, black for numbers - a principle that is immediately obvious and can be expanded. If you want to manipulate code you can do that in a very natural way which is ideal for logical puzzles like connected levers or traps that go off in a periodic pattern and the community can even write mods that prepare new blocks.
You get even more intuition if you allow for context sensitive drag-and-drop. You Ctrl-drag a unit (or even a button) into the trigger board, its creature token-block appears (no need to rename the unit). Then you choose its trigger output (e.g. 'dies') or its number output ('isDead') and connect it to the event of your choice (journal entry). This has the advantage that search range of functions is reduced and a certain redundancy of options smoothens your workflow. Debugging is absolutely simple if you refer to existing objects.
Also whenever drag'n drop is not possible you know that an editior function is either not optimally standardized or has prerequisites that could be automated.
Problems are when you need to refer to templates or you want an object to inherit alien methods. And larger scripts might suffer performace problems.

I do not have the experience on modding to know which activities are the most time consuming. Please do not attempt such a mammoth for your editor if you do not agree it would reduce work time since it isn't new functionality and the scripting in your language looks pretty comfortable already.

100% agree.

Another question:
Does Larian intend to include community mods into the official game at some point?

I am not an expert on this topic, but I believe in World of Warcraft Blizzard included several functions in the official game, after other people created a program for this themselves.

The only mod I have worked on:
When I played Pillars of Eternity, the official german translation was partly terrible. The biggest problem was, that several items had stat modifiers as name (the item type "short bow" was named Intellect+2). The community made a translation mod and I reported several errors that were corrected with this mod. If you want to play the game with a proper translation, you still have to download the mod even though it would be no problem for Obsidian to replace the old dialogue files with the new ones. The Modders even discussed with the devs about some translations and every change is documented.

By the way: Does Larian translate their games themselves?
As belgium company, most people can speak english, dutch, french and german I guess.

Never did get into DOS editor : always seemed a bit too high of a learning curve.

I do have some experience with modding/mapping though, primarily using the StarCraft 2 editor. That thing is great - if your editor is half as good as it is, then you will have done a spectacular job. If you don't have anyone familiar with it, it might be a good idea to have someone spend a few days fiddling with it (or just watch some tutorials to see how easy it is to accomplish major overhauls) in order to understand all the features it offers, and how powerful it actually is. In particular, how the editor can be used to create fully custom abilities, effects, import models, or even create a new UI, with a scripting system that fires on top of more standard data editing.

That said, some things I would like to see (that the SCII editor does!) include :

Ability to make your mod depend on another - this will inherit any data changes made in the base mod, which you can then further modify.
When you start a new mod, it automatically sets up all the basic systems you need (I heard in DOS editor, you need to copy/paste and then fix scripts and such to even run a blank custom map, nevermind adding in campaign-like features).
A basic WYSIWYG first level editor : This allows you to create terrain (both fully custom and with prefabs), place units and features, and perform other basic operations. Clicking on units/features should allow you to do some basic customization of them (facing, unit level, feature size, etc)
A middling (XML-like) editor. This would be used to modify units (statistics, buffs, abilities), change or create abilities/items/crafting, add quests, etc. All fields have mouseover text explaining what they do.
A middling effects editor. This should allow you to view models or graphical effects, make a (limited) set of changes to them, such as scaling, rotation, recoloring, retexturing, etc, and give you options on when to use these new graphical effects (eg create a ice sparkle effect by recoloring, slowing the rain effect. This effect can then be used when a new snowfall ability is triggered)
An advanced scripting editor. This should take in arguments from the XML editor (eg if you create a new ability in the XML, you should be able to trigger something to happen when it is used, or if you need a more complex quest chain, you could make one here)
Ability to import custom models, icons, etc would be wonderful.

I've no idea if anyone at Larian ever though about this but for me it's a great idea if the new modding tool we have is great for users.

No, at least not for any games so far.

That is something the leading game has just started getting into a bit and it seems their next game it maybe more standard. It made sense to me that if someone was to create some killer content/features, you could monitor how many downloads, rating etc and then add that into the game as options of course. Probably need some legalese stating anything created with our tools we own and can use. And you being cool if you did use someones stuff you send out some free stuff to them.

Finally had a chance to watch this thing.

Few thoughts:

1. On the stream they mentioned not being sure why people were bringing up Prefabs when they already have that functionality.

Personally I could never get this to work right. I try creating a prefab and it just causes crashes. Maybe in the newer version this works better, or maybe it always worked fine...If you had developer mode.


2. Dialog Editor:

It's great that the old editor files open in the new one.

I think the actual dialog should be a little larger though. The high level overview is nice but it doesn't look very pleasant to type in.

Or perhaps is there a dialog pane where you can see that and it just wasn't shown?


3. Game Master mode and relating to the editor:

It was also mentioned that the community could make templates for people to use in GM mode. Just make sure to include a fair amount with the game's base otherwise the mode will never take off in the first place.

Couple of new ideas after watching the stream... if they go with the templates functionality, some of this could be done by modders:

1) Copy map

Sometimes, I want a city/region/world to change climate, be devastated by war, or a volcano to erupt. There may be ways to do this already, I'm not sure. But it would be great to copy a whole map over in order to maintain the same basic shape/structure and change the environment, or replace some models, etc.

2) On the Fly water levels

This could be a templated script from modders, probably. Something to change the water levels in a region on the fly (simulate flooding, etc).

I hope the new editor will be windows 10 friendly as well cause it just keeps crashing at the moment.

It would be nice if you could import Blender file types as well.

Support for open file formats is already noted.

Another matter that's always quite tedious when digging through new code is getting a knack of all the structure elements.
So, depending on the complexety and looking at the "ease of use" side, maybe it's possible to have something like a source/call tracker on board?

a thorough, in depth, comprehensive, comprehensible, complete manual

After watching the level editor stream, I kept wanting an easy/fast way of previewing the model assets that they kept looking for. It's always a huge pain to know what you are looking for as far as model assets when all you have is a cryptic name in a crazy long list of cryptic names.

Please give us an asset preview window that we can leave open that when we click on an asset in those crazy long lists it is previewed.

I know NWN is always mentioned with things like this and I'm not the biggest fan overall. But one thing I did love about NWN is it has some magazines for content programmers. Not that this is needed in 2015, hard print, but I thought that was bas ass for the time. A great way to get your kids interested in programming.

EX:


Maybe D:OS's secondary destiny will be a TB/COOP Engine for designers.

Yes, I'd go as far to say the Tutorials are more important than the overall features at this point.

Just came back to DOS and gaming in general after some month break (family, moving city) and DOH i again missed the kickstarter. There was some time i read this forums at a daily base eagerly waiting for these interesting times.. anyway here my first fast 2 cents..:

I want to quote this very old post of mine as it sums up my very first impressions from the DOS1 editor and compares it to NWN2 editor (which i heavily used aswell is import / retexturing modding, and was mentioned for good reasons aleady several times here in the thread)

Look here: http://larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=42990&Number=510259#Post510259

to sum up my important features i'd liked to see and are still valid:

• tint function: generally skin and hair is tintable. So make it all placeables and wearables and monsters and and
  
  In NWN2 i even once found an interesting workaround to whiten / bleach textures (we made minas tirith the white city in NWN2 HotTA persistent world LOTR project which never fully released unfortunately).
  Instead of retexturing greyish wall textures (which wont become brighter but just darker by tinting them) i made yellow (R 255 G 255 B 0) tint maps. with having a RGB tint texture (3 colors, 1 for each channel) the yellow ( R + G ) double channel bleaches the original texture. To make the long story short: this tool tinkering with allowed us doing stuff not forseen by the original designers.
• making it more easy to use and apply the material editor: this could make a lot of retexturing work obsolete
• make it easy to to change and associate texture of assets in the editor
• easy to understand the file structure of the engine and to import / export textures into the game also without 3D editor. I remember i did tons of stuff just with photoshop incl. normal maps and some import tools
• second plugins
• second area prefabs but also placeable prefabs. with some lego bricks assets you can make pretty cool architecture. save it and share it. Was made successfully in NWN2. Just the engine couldnt handle to much polygons of complex placeables at the end. simple bricks assets though were fine.
• import export area and all kinds of prefabs. make it possible to share and work together. Not everybody has the capacity to make a whole big mod but maybe gets really good in tinkering and messing around with one aspect of the editor.
• z-axis? not too important but well
• changing wearable parts and color in game: i remember having a lot of fun creating the perfect outfit. if it against the policy that players should earn their style keep it for GM mode and cheat mode
• i like playing in isometric view, though having a look around function or at least a camera function that shows you distance panorama at certain triggers would be really nice.

I second to look up the NWN toolsets for friendlyness.

I trust you (and most of all game industry) to do something i was waiting for a long time. DOS1 editor has a lot of potential but polishing it, make it more friendly plus some key features and there you go

do you read this, larian?

you already have educational software/games. this great idea could enhance your portfolio?

Better configurable camera movement

If this is possible already, please enlighten me, but even though the camera in the editor is easy enough to use once you know the shortcuts (middle mouse button, arrow keys, CTRL, ALT, pressing both mouse buttons), I'd really like to be able to move the camera according to regular Spacesim standards. Namely: completely free 3D movement.

- Middle mouse button for mouselook works well enough
- Forward, left, backwards, right (this is possible already)
- Up, down (not possible right now?)
- Roll left or right (would only make sense if you can view the world upside down ...)

- Also useful: keys or modifier keys to rotate around the targeted y axis or a selected object, similar to a regular rotating camera in the game. Basically automatic perfect strafing around the currently targeted (virtual or real) point or object.


Particularly the lack of up or down movement irks me and can apparently only be simulated by pointing the camera up or down and zooming in or out.


My personal keys for those would be:
- ESDF for moving the camera forward, left, back or right
- Space for moving the camera up ("Jump key")
- Z for moving the camera down ("Crouch key")
- W/R for rolling the camera left or right
- A/G for horizontal strafing around a target

But as long as they are configurable I guess everyone would be happy. I do prefer to keep my left hand on the left side of the keyboard.


Edit: And, for first time users, please add info about how to move the camera right after starting and configuring the editor settings.

Edit 2: More keyboard shortcuts would be nice too, like CTRL-D for "deselect all" (from Photoshop).

Blender has conversion scripts for most major 3D software now.

They had a guide just for the Editor? That's so cool. I never knew about that lol.

There was a script mag/quide as well. Print was still big enough then.

Allow detailed skill tree \ individual skill editor, and of course enable resistances\damage editing, please.

As obvious it may sound, race editor too, in order to be able to add more. Plugin support, like the Dragon Age editor was promised to have but never delivered, would be a nice idea.

Also. allow for voiceset editor\customisation, please. hoping that there is no voice acting for the main character, like Dragon Age was.

Is it also going to be a map editor?

I'm assuming that you haven't used The Divinity Engine from the release of Divinity: Original Sin. It's not a map editor, but you can edit maps for sure (like the original campaign maps/scripts/events/etc.). I'd say it's more akin to, say... unity, but with a bunch of rpg plugins and stuff. Suffice to say, it's an (specialized) engine, and not a toolset.

I gave up after how broken, user-unfriendly it was and how it never allowed anything to be made. I hope this one will be better.

i dont think it was broken.
oc it was not meant to be used "casually"; after all it was the tool DOS1 was built with.
so, think issue is not "what can be done with it" but "how can it be done", ie usability.

larian promised exactly this in this kickstarter, so i have high hopes (and also expectations) regarding the "new" thing

swen talks about "pre defined templates" (in KS update 7) that will be used in DM mode to change the game on the fly.

templates could/should be available in the "normal" modding mode as well: maybe larian could implement a "template" mode/option or something into the modding tool that allows for a "quick"-building of scenarios, ie the more complex tools are disabled and only a basic dialog + encounter editor (similar to what is possible in DM mode) + a "slim" map editor (like templates for houses, castles, woods, graveyards etc.) are available.

SCL has something like this (though IMO SCL's editor is too restrictive)

this way, story/scenario mods could be built much easier and quicker

As a former user of NWN2 modding tools I would like to direct you to certain NWN2 custom content still available (although IGN they shut down nwvault the former main modding hub)

For Terrain building and Mapping there were some really sweet plugins (yes we want plugin support also for DOS2!). Made by users to improve functionality and usability, these could be excellent examples of how to improve the editor:


well beside that i really would like to have more cinematic tools like cameras cutscenes overshoulder action in combat camera like XCOM. Though dont know if the assets will allow it.

The D:OS editor supports plugins actually. However, the list of loaded plugins is hardcoded and you need some C# magick to make it load external ones. Also, the native (C++) stuff is not exposed in any header file, so making calls to it is harder.

The startup code looks something like this:

What I would like to see is an easy way to create inventory for chests, drop tables for enemies, and tables for merchants, by simply dragging or picking stuffs we want, without having to deal with scripts or any coding. I have no idea how to create a merchant, nor how to add specific stuff in a chest. It seems to require scripting, which is far from easy to use. Of course this goes with the possibility to create and edit equipements and items (stats, level, etc) without having to deal with some unpacked files and typing in a txt.

I think the editor relies too much on scripting, it's basically impossible to do anything but mapping if you don't know how to use the scripts, and unfortunately we are not mediums. Simply creating a custom merchant or adding a companion gives me a headdache.

Generally I think it is really important to have a import/export function of pretty much everything (parts of maps, templates, prefabs and blueprints of anything like items, created encounters, NPCs, weapons, treasures, all kind of scripts and scripted systems, light templates, visual effects, material and and and).

I am mainly addressing things you can make with the editor out of the box without any custom content. (combined with custom content would be also important)

To have a prospering modding community, there is a need to do small details, prefabs and blueprints for those that dont have the capacity to do a real big complete playable module but just tinkering around with one aspect of the game and providing it (templates, prefabs, blueprints) for the community (via nexus / workshop).

One guy just blueprints of all kind of orcs with nice names, colors and stats and maybe even encounters, the other girl is writing new usable scripts, the next one makes just beautiful plain maps and slow-joe-in-the-back-row just makes stunning waterfall vfx and materials so that finally MR. Not-so-much-time-and-capacity downloads all kinds of usable stuff imports these in his module and focusses on writing the story and dialogs.

Beside the importance for lone-wolves this is a must for any team creating playable content.

This must be easy uncomplicated and stable. Export - Import and voil�!!

@morez
you include assets?

In my last post i was actually more adressing import export function of anything that can be created with the editor out of the box. Still would be important to include custom made assets into prefabs etc.
I wanted to address the need for features and tools to share and work together on one bigger playable module.


Though, if an model / assets import export tool wasnt asked for before anyway this was the first thing i'd ask for. Thought better not to be too repetitive but well lets repeat the echo in the discourse:

"YES Larian we want to be able to import/export anything, from 3D models, to animations, to textures to just anything!"

[Provovation=on] Hey Larian, I bet you guys wont be able to not use too much proprietary stuff like 3rd party tools like GR2 things and so on that will always have right issues to make them available to players. You wont have the guts to make as much things as possible open source but at the end too much will be hardcoded again. [/Provocation=off]

To say it clearly out loud, it always was my dream to have a real open source thing with that kind of quality as DOS has (among some few others). Sure, I am not an insider of professional of games industry still i think a game that was more open than usual in the buisness could be a huge success once developers have the courage for that. At least Larian was proving a lot of courage already. So there might be a chance they will make things different.

[Provocation=on] But the guys from Larian never gonna do that [Provocation=off]

a wiki like this one would be awesome: http://www.nwn2toolset.dayjo.org/

or
http://www.nwnlexicon.com/index.php

or
http://neverwintervault.org/project...-reference-guide-tutorial-xls-collection

or something like this: http://neverwintervault.org/sites/n...oject/690/files/toolset_manual_v1.06.pdf

I know, all of that is community made. But I think that kind of documentation is needed for really cool mods

If Larian can't spare resources for this (which is fair), perhaps they could collaborate with a few community members to create the best Wiki experience. Channel our personal interest into professional outcome.

Just to bump this, would be ecstatic if what's on the list (as seen in the updated OP) gets to make it in. Really
If i could only add one request, that would be to make it as ---easy--- to "navigate" within the editor as humanly possible. This is very important

You need to take a step backwards and remind yourselves that from the millions of people out there doing mods, only a handful (relatively to the sum) have programming skills. The rest, like me, learned and did through trial and error. It never amounted to much, but that was never the point.

Starting from scratch can be daunting, but that is ok, as long as it's not being made impossible. Make the editor easy to grasp/navigate/work with, so that we may learn while trying it out.
The example i usually give is Morrowind's editor. It had functions enough for people like me to be out of their depth with, but sufficient ease of use so that changing gear, looks, NPCs/vendors, stats and spell speeds was possible. Even for me, lol

On the topic of documentation, the NWN2 community has spent a lot of time making excellent documentation such as this: NWN2 Toolset Notes

This happens because modders love working with the toolset...because it isn't ridiculously hard to use.

Yeah I am just adding this now

Fix Fortify...

There is no reason it should get worse as the game goes on yet alone become outright useless. Scale it... even if you have to scale it according to level.

This might belong in another thread.

Again tying the DM mode to the editor, the essential stuff needs to be really simple to use; enabling a DM mode for a human DM to 'fill in the gaps' to make it useful with absolute minimal skill would be great. Perhaps having the editor have a DM mode and a full mode would help encourage people to develop the skills necessary to become competent in full use mode ... at which point they could have friends play test a mod with the mod developer only rarely intervening to remove final bugs as opposed to being a 'true' DM where they're constantly 'intervening'. I suggest focussing on the DM 'minimal functional editor' and making it 'perfect' for early release. The 'true' full editor will probably 'always be in beta', but a highly stable DM mode with additional options that can be added/activated would make it customisable to everyone's skill level.

As with learning any skill, people need to feel they're making progress and can do something useful with it asap. Get them on a positive learning cycle and they'll continue to develop their skill. Get enough people developing full mods that can be sold through Larian (who get a fair cut of the profits), and you'll have yourself a source of golden eggs ... and the game's community as a whole will eventually have more new content than could be played in one lifetime

I don't agree. Ideally, the tools should be finished in time for the developers to make use of them. Good modding tools are not terribly different from a game engine. RPG Maker is a good example that really blurs this line.

Here are some ideas.
-Scaling NPCs, both enemies and non-party allies alike. And not just the generic "scale to PC level" but other options such as "scale to PC level + x" or "scale to PC level but max out at level 5".

-An option to make some skills exclusive to certain classes, such as the 2-handed skill not being available to the Mage class. So essentially creating specialised classes, instead of the current system where everyone can level up in any skill, which totally fine, but the option to create normally RPG specialised classes would be nice.

-An online option so several people can populate a map with items, sort of like a Google-drive document that several people can edit at the same time.

Something I would hope for, is the ability to leave areas of the map blank, for being only dynamically filled with procedural content (or blueprints with randomized decor) if required at runtime.

E.g. house interiors, open plains, etc. That's not making much sense for single player campaigns, but for GM sessions, the ability to patch the world as the session goes should proof rather valuable, as it removes the need to model tons of features forehand, if the players are never going to see them anyway.

This could be expressed in a more generic fashion: Support for deterministic, procedural script plugins, which can be given a free-form area of the map, optionally with a number of fixed features (doors, passages to other areas, bounding box and alike, can be assisted by querying for adjacent features instead). Effectively, "Scripted Blueprints" / "Scripted Brush".

In terms of workflow: Select a region (whereby the engine per default snaps to the edges of a "blank" area, e.g. indoors to the wall, outdoors to the edge of "unpainted" terrain, on painted terrain to the edge of the texture, alternate mode: Snap to "region", whereby the engine tracks regions.), adjust the parameters (including the random seed) and get a live preview of the modifications the script would do to the map. Once you are happy with the results, persist the changes (for alternate selection mode: also persist region information). When in a multiplayer (game) session, distribute changes on persisting.

(Regions can be hierarchically nested.)

A script could perform arbitrary modification to the height map, place all types of assets, paint terrain, auto generate script triggers.

Also the ability to call another script from within a script, to generate sub-features. (e.g.: High level script divides house into floors and rooms, aligning with doors and windows, low level scripts for various room types add the actual interior, lights, rugs etc.)

Effectively, this should allow rather easily to "paint" e.g. unique houses, outdoor features and alike with minimal effort. It also allows modders to share "concepts" instead of just ready baked assets, allowing for mass production of unique features.

I don't expect the folks from Larian to use such a system themselves - they got the resources to hand-place every single pebble in the stock campaign, but for less-than-fulltime map makers, this should reduce the work significantly while avoiding the "cloned" look you would usually get with ready made assets.

If this has already been suggested, my apologies (feel free to delete my post) :s

Currently, Larian cannot release the EE editor for fear of the upcoming patch causing issues. Something which has happened before, with the original version.

Using once again the same paradigm (Morrowind), i would ask for a DOS2 editor that gets installed 'once' and is made in such a way so as to be able to function independently/with any version of the game, regardless of future changes.

I also want to suggest that ALL assets from the previous game should be available for modders, especially monsters\sounds. Worldbuilding too, but I am curious about how we will be able to import new meshes\textures.

1. Say you are populating a patch of forest with trees, you then plop in 10 x tree A, 8 X tree B and 6 x tree C. The problem is that they're all set at the exact same angle so in order for your forest to look natural you'll have to manually turn each on of them.
So i propose an option you can turn on and off, where each time you put in a tree (or any item actually) its angle will be randomized any where from 0 to 360* where 0 and 360 is due north and 180 is due south.
Does everyone understand my proposal here?

---------------------SPOILER ALERT----------------------------

Divinity: Original Sin QUEST SPOILER AHEAD.

2. It would be cool to be able to have quests with random endings! It can be really simply or real complex. Let me elaborate. I remember playing Fallout 2 many years ago, and one of the early quest you got in the Den was one where you were supposed to find a book someone had misplaced, it was actually rather simple to find, it could be at 1 out of 3 places, the thing was that each time you started a new game it might appear at another place than in your previous game. Such kind of a feature shouldn't be hard to implement, right?

Now imagine this feature taken to the next level, so when each time you start a new game in D:OS Jake's murderer and source user would be a random one, out of say, Esmeralda, Evelyn, Robert the mortician plus some more that way you would actually have to do some investigation each game run.

PS. When do the editor "closes" for new features? There is a sum up of what people suggested, in the first post but it doesn't seem to have been updated in many months, do the devs. still look at this page??

You can actually already do this in the D:OS editor it's just kind of a pain in the butt.

Totally ! haha.
Personally, I find it only useful to place object like trees.

Even for that I stopped using it because the instance painter actually makes it harder to tweak them later. Unless there's some magic trick to it I'm not aware of.

And if it's one of those trees that has leaves as separate objects I found it harder to use.

I guess it comes in handy as well when you places stones, rocks, plants (not the 2D ones) and other vegetation.
Also I wasn't aware that such a feature already existed in the D:OS Editor

Wizards. Lots of them, paired with documentation.

As I don't see it in the list, I'll put it forward: A self contained equipment/item editor.

After fiddling with the EE Editor, with the help of Baardvark and SniperHF, I've come to want an item editor that is built into the game editor. I've seen item editors in editors for games like Dragon Age Origins or Elder scrolls games and used them with little effort.
Understanding how to add a custom item in DOS:EE was less straightforward, what with most of the editing being done outside the editor.

Please PLEASE create a greyscale importer by default in the editor. Don't make me make something like this again.

https://github.com/Celludriel/DOS_Terrain_Importer
https://github.com/Celludriel/DOS_Terrain_Lib

Do you have any idea how much headaches this gave me when I made it :p Not even sure they still work I haven't maintained it with future patches. Nobody was using it because the toolset was to complex.

Try and take a lesson from NWN 1 , make it easy and accessible for most people. Make it fun to use and mods/campaigns will follow. Make it to complex and it will fall on it's bum again

Soooooo much this ^^^.

Some background...

I wrote the first NWN1 NWScript language reference PDF and was heavily involved in the NWN1 community from early beta thru a year after release. Due to the complexity of editing, I eventually lost interest and faded away. I've watched almost all UGC (User Generated Content) editors in various RPGs over the years. I have been heavily involved in NWO (Neverwinter Online) in the Foundry community. I created several projects in Project Spark, and recently have watched and suffered through the fumblings of SCL (Sword Coast Legends).

That being said, the BEST UGC Editors I have worked with have been NWO, Project Spark, and SCL. NWO has generated tens of thousands of UGC Adventures; Project Spark as well. SCL was unfortunately HORRIBLY mismarketed and targeted at 8-10 year old creators -- the "Fisher Price" of UGC Editors. However, it was at least on the right track albeit considerably anemic in power.

D:OS1 appears to have a quite powerful but very user-hostile editor, and a horrid scripting "language" in Osiris. D:OS1 seems to be a Swiss Army knife with 4,397 functions. I have scoured the internet searching as best I could for basic adventure "mods" for D:OS1 and think I found 2. TWO. TOTAL. Fail. Waaaay too complex for non-developers (and I've been a software developer for 40+ years).

So, here are some suggestions and things I (hope & pray) D:OS2 Editor improves.

* Simplify UGC "Adventure" module creation. Non "modders" need simplified terrain layout, 3-d object placement, and very simple trigger/event handling. They should be able to create a shareable adventure without once having to see/touch Osiris scripting.
* Don't cripple "modders" at the expense of "module creators."
* Osiris needs some major language skills. I haven't studied it in depth, but it appears to be almost like programming PLC (Programmable Logic Circuits) without even rudimentary language structure (if-then-else; statement blocks, etc). Seems closer to assembly code. If nothing else it needs a pre-processor to convert REAL language constructs into whatever Osiris understands.
* 3-D Asset Selection - A File chooser does NOT cut it. There needs to be a (static/2-D) "palette" of objects, organized in sub-tabs or categories that we can see visually at a glance. A 3-D mini-previewer of selected objects would be nice as well.
* 3-D Asset Placement - In 3-D view window, an easy way of placing assets -- perhaps attached to ground or walls, but then further refinement allowing full 3-D rotation on all axis, as well as shifting along all axis.
* Event Triggers - D:OS1 seems to already have a good selection, but improving user-experience would help. An easy way of link triggers and events (Asset Appearance/Disappearance, Sound/Visual effect appear/disappear, etc.) all without requiring user to ever see a line of associated scripting.

PLEASE look at NWO Foundry editor (AND Dialog Editor!) for a "goal" of easy User Experience.

Adventure/Story creators are VASTLY different than "modders."
As long as you leave hooks and accessibility "modders" are incredibly resourceful.
Adventure/Story creators NEED ease of use.

Thanks, and I really, REALLY hope D:OS2 succeeds here -- we could really use a good UGC edtior for RPG.

Exactly what Eldarth says, You stuck longer with SCL then I did. I did play it yesterday though, just to pass the time. Playing a game just to pass the time, should be a tell that something is off. Make D:OS 2 in such a way that we want to play and have more and more adventures after the main campaign and make it possible to create those adventures in a user friendly way.

I'm all for writing addons to help people in this, but not like last time, none of the file types where described and they had to be deciphered by someone else. Then I had to write libraries to read and write those file types , before I actually was able to start on a plugin.

Also when can I come over for a visit I only live like 80km away

I agree a lot of this stuff would be nice, and the distinction between modders and module creators is important.

But I think a lot of the criticisms of the D:OS 1 editor can be boiled down to people blaming the editor for not doing something it never attempted. Nor claimed to for that matter.

D:OS 2 absolutely should be more friendly in this regard due to the GM mode.

After my recent post in the GM mode thread, I realised that there were a couple of ideas I had that aren't entirely obvious, and are more relevant to this thread rather than the GM Mode.

As I mentioned in that post, there are potentially 3 layers to the proposed modding tools.

1. Core modding tools
2. Creation tools
3. GM mode

When it comes to the "creation tools", I realised there was something I wanted to say about how modules, ideally, should work.

I enjoyed XCOM 2, and it's great that it's got such good community support for modding it, but it does make some big mistakes when it comes to supporting content modules. If I want to add a new alien to the game, I download the mod for the alien, and it affects all save games in XCOM 2. If I later delete the mod, then XCOM 2 will then refuse to load any of my new save games. The mods are not at all quarantined from the core game.

If you look at the game Battle for Wesnoth, this is an open-source game that does an good job of supporting modules on the campaign level. I can download 10 different campaigns, open the game, choose the campaign I want to play, and then play the campaign which will include custom NPCs, new gameplay mechanics and custom creatures with new assets.

First of all, what I'd like to see is tools allowing for the creation of a campaign module in the style of Battle for Wesnoth where campaigns are installed in parallel, without conflicting with each other (the core campaign should just be the "default" module). Ideally, when hosting multiplayer, it shouldn't be necessary for the clients to have already installed the module. The module should be automatically uploaded to the clients if they don't have the exact same module (of the exact same version).

Items, NPCs, assets, etc should also be modularised. This means, for example, that I can create a custom weapon "Ayvah's sword of vengeance" (potentially with its own 3D model). Or potentially even a whole new class of weapons. Maybe I feel like creating a module which allows you to pick up anachronistic machine guns as a new class of weapons. Upload the module to Steam Workshop or whatever service we'll be relying on, and it's available for other content creators to attach to their campaign. Perhaps another content creator is inspired by these new machine guns and makes his own variation as a separate module relying on my module.

When installing or loading a campaign module, it will automatically identify these dependencies and ensure they're all installed.

At least, I really think this would be ideal.

I haven't really seen the new dialog editor much, but a suggestion for it.

On the old one there was an option for "emotional expression" which plays an animation on the NPC during dialog. It would be great if there were more animation options for those emotion expressions.

Maybe have the field let you pick from all available animations for that character? Or let you manually imput the string as an override? Or make it possible to play an animation from the ACTION section without using a flag.

Some more editor suggestions...

General Functionality

* NPC Faction Change on Dialogue Completion: Sometimes you really want an NPC to go from friendly or neutral, straight to hostile.
* Option to Strip Players of Gear: Possibly a controversial one, but starting players out stripped of gear for a module (if this option is set, the module should say so in order to avoid issues. Like a prompt saying "You will be stripped of your gear joining this module"
* DM Abilities: Sometimes you want, as the DM, to heal, buff or debuff your players. Heck, sometimes you want to heal your monsters. Gifts from the gods, to one side or another. One of the great things about being able to debuff players is acting as curses, saying the enemy has injured them, etc.
* Map Duplication: Make a map, duplicate that map, and change it from there. Why is this useful? Say you have a city. The players leave this city. Later they come back to the city. It has been attacked by raiders. You want to be able to take what you had and make a destroyed version. Doing this from scratch can be problematic, especially if your memory sucks.
* Pitch Black Atmosphere: Some dungeons don't have any light sources other than the doorway. Sometimes they don't even have that if you go deep enough. This would be huge for creating suspenseful, nerve-wracking maps.
* Ability / Class Checks Matter: While dealing with Branching Dialogue, we'd love to be able to set up inherent ability checks in to conversations. Not just ability checks but class checks as well. For example, you may be able to talk your way out of a potential combat scenario with a charisma check. Maybe you can help someone with a problem by being a Wizard. Maybe certain quests will only be available to Rogues, or someone with a high intelligence. Perhaps you can pseudo Sense Motive with Wisdom to tell that an NPC is holding something back, opening up a Charisma check option to get them to spill the beans. There is a huge amount of things a good DM can do with this.
* Populate Area with NPCs: Right now we have to create every single NPC for a town ourselves. What would be nice is the ability to quick populate a town without needing to create every, single towns-person, craftsman, farmer, villager, etc. Could be a creature set.

Quests

* Custom Quest "Story Items" - Basically just an "inventory icon" name and description. So we can create quest-related items: Purple mushrooms, Troll Thumbs, Historical Tomes, Orc Tribal Necklace, etc.
* Randomly Dropped Custom Quest Item From Killed Mob: Some people do want to be able to set up quests like "Collect 3 Spider Venom Sacs". Unimaginative, but sometimes a necessary evil for questing. Sometimes an NPC REALLY does need those monster items for something important. Sometimes it's just a random side quest. Sometimes it's a random side quest that could be important later, if you completed it. Either way, a useful addition to questing.

Ambience

* Disable Lights: Torches, window lighting in cities, etc. Sometimes you want an abandoned city only lit by moonlight.
* Placeable Point Lighting: Perhaps there is a light coming from the ceiling (through cracks or holes) and you want to aim them at specific places, or just fill your dungeon with random lighting from various sources. Heck, maybe all you want to do is extend the existing light sources. Adjustable radii are useful.
* Selectable Music Per Map: We'd like to be able to set a maps various music instead of having it all chosen for us. Area Music, Battle Music, etc. If you guys have various tavern themes, we'd love to play them in actual taverns we create. Either repeats a single track or cycle through tracks we choose. Both options would be nice. You guys gave us the tools to create atmosphere with lighting and various effects, let us do it with music too.
* Placeable Sound Effects: Sometimes you want to hear running water in an area, because running water is nearby. Or dripping. Or squeaking. All sorts of things can be done here.
* Overhead Announcements: Maybe you want the players to know there is a massive attack happening somewhere. People don't have to use this, but some want it.
* Placeable Visual Effectsnt: Smoke, fire, glowing magic pixie fairy rings, dripping water, waterfalls, water planes, lava, etc.

Other

* More Humanoid Armor: Weapons and shields are nice, but we could really use the ability for humanoid monsters to be able to change armor. Weapons and shields are nice, but some creatures could have different armor types (ESPECIALLY humanoids). It'd be awesome for making NPC factions a thing. Selectable hairstyles would also be nice for some creatures (like Goblins.) Variant enemies are nice and all, but we could definitely take it further with some species. Being able to apply scars and whatnot to monsters can help when making a unique version.
* Large Color Selection: We don't even have fluorescent pink for our Ogres to disguise as pretty pink princesses. This makes some of us sad. Not many dark options currently. Lots of brights.
* NPC Patrol/Waypoint/Paths: Sometimes you want enemies or NPCs to walk around. Maybe you want them to patrol. Maybe you want them to go to a specific place. We can't do any of this right now. Monsters included. Sometimes you want the NPC to flee after having a conversation with the players, such as if you free them from a cage and they thank the players. You wouldn't want that NPC to stick around (It needs to be doable DM-less so the DM can focus on other things. Not all of us are amazing micromanagers.) Another thing that would be very useful is having NPCs run up to players for a conversation. Maybe you want to set up a side-quest that is given that way. It all makes the world feel more alive!
* NPC Wandering: Towns can be an incredibly stale environment when NPCs are all standing around doing nothing. Sometimes you want your non-important NPCs to walk around. Heck, sometimes you want your IMPORTANT NPCs to walk around. Sometimes you want that lawkeeper to survey a crime scene. Sometimes you want townsfolk going about their daily lives. This would do wonders for making much of a campaign feel more alive. Monsters included.
* Better Control of Aggro Radius: Sometimes you want an enemy to see the player the second they're on screen (as long as there is line of sight). Sometimes you don't want them to see players until they're right up against the characters nose. Maybe the enemy is blind.

@Eldarth,

I've read your last 2 posts, and I really agree with every single word. Top posts, by the way !
It seems to me you fired the NWN editor recently, yes ?
I seem to see some NWN related things ...

As for programming languages, which also was my job long ago, I think it is totally true adventure creators need ease of use, without requiring high language skills, or photoshop skills. So that means a language with triggers, if-then-else, and other basic stuff.

At contrary, modders don't mind the complexity of C, C++ etc ...

Both population are different in essence, and should be addressed accordingly.

+1 on this one.

If I may add a relevant suggestion.

You've made a town that has a day-time version and night-time version, so all the terrain and the structures placed are the same. But the NPCs diverts, at night the cheese vendor who stand on the market in daytime is at home in his bed dreaming of cheeses and the night watch have left its barrack and are now patrolling the streets looking for trouble makers. You as the PC have rented a room at the inn, here the bed serve as gateway between the night-time and day-time versions of the town.

But there is a catch that needs a solution.
Lets say you decided to burglarise a merchants shop, you break in at night while he sleeps in his bed upstairs and steals a golden ornate dagger from a display. So the problem here is that if you return to his shop next day with the dagger in your inventory there will still be a dagger in the display, because there is a "day-time version" and a "night-time version" of the dagger.

So my solution here is that there needs to be some sort of "quantum entanglement" mechanism between items or NPCs on 2 different levels, so interacting with one will effect the other.

Another example, you have become very annoyed at the cheese vendor, so you break into his house at night and while he sleeps in his bed you smother him with "a wheel of the good stuff", then you dump his body in the river and watch it float away. So the next day you don't want him standing at market again soliciting his germ infested milk products.

Again here you kill a NPC on one level and he should be connected to the "same" NPC one the other level, that will therefor disappear.

I hope my suggestion has been made clear.

Thanks. Not sure what you mean by "fired" the NWN editor -- do you mean "fired up" as in started or played with? ...in any event, nope haven't played with it in quite awhile -- I actually was heavily into the NWN1 game and created one of the first NWScript programmer PDF documents. So, definitely familiar at least with the NWN1 editor.

As a node.js programmer, I would like to promote Javascript as the best choice as a language for modders. This has increasingly become a popular language in modern game engines for a good reason. It's used in Unity, RPG Maker, etc.


This can mostly be resolved just with triggers. That is, you trigger both versions of the cheese vendor as, eg "cheeseVendor.onDeath = function() { cheeseVendorDeath = true;}" and you can test against this to remove him from other parts of the game. It should ideally be very simple programming.

Either that or Larian will already have a more elaborate solution. After all, there are going to be plenty of killable characters in their campaign that will be mobile enough to move between maps.

That being said, I think it *would* be good to be able to specifically say that there is only one cheeseVendor and that it is the same cheeseVendor that appears on both maps so that there is less abstraction.

The tricky part about your suggestion for me is -- what if the player *moves* something. He picks up a barrel and moves it a couple of meters. You could abstract that using triggers as well, but it would not be as easy, and there are plenty of problems with this. For example, imagine the shop owner is only in the shop during the day. In the night version of the map, you pick up a barrel and drop it where he usually stands. When you return during the day time, where is he? Inside the barrel?

Okay, then maybe make it impossible to drop items on places where NPCs, on a duplicate map, will stand or have a route on. You could also make a rule that forbids dropping some items, such barrels in houses or just have them disappear on the duplicate map. Wouldn't it be weird if you drop an oil barrel, which in the game is basically a bomb, on the floor of a merchants house and the next morning the shop keeper is just standing there. Wouldn't he just get rid of it or store it somewhere safe if he was kinda sentient?
But then again all these rules and mechanism will probably have some unintended spillover effects, so maybe the whole idea should probably just be discarded or implemented in another way.

Yes, I meant "fire up", sorry, non native english, here and all the rest of that ...
I meant your posts sound very influenced by NWN1, which is 100% OK to me.

Yeah - I really liked NWScript and really, REALLY hope Larian turns Osiris into a "real" computer language that's got real syntax instead of whatever Frankenstein cobbled together state-machine/assembly/stack mess it appears to be in D:OS1.

Agreed. I have very fond memories of Aurora, and to see the Divinity Toolset as more similar to it would make me very happy.

I just really hope that they put in as much effort in to the gm mode as they seem to be doing with the betrayal and multiple dialogue features gm mode is the main reason I'm interested

It needs a good campaign creation mechanic
Plz larian plz don't just put the minimum effort in to gm mode I really really want this to flourish and be a great place to play a old school rpg online
You guys have the chance to succeed were sword coast legends failed and obviously their is a demand for this type of feature in rpgs otherwise ppl would not have thrown a fit at sword coast legends while having memories of dming in the old d&d games like nwn2
Sincerely a new found fan of dming d&d game's

well, going to give my own insight into this, since its a game that I am really eager to get my hands on. But my only "request" is that we can edit/add assets, and by that I specifically mean Character creation assets, like rigged models. When I got Divinity: Original Sin, I got a bit disappointed that I was not able to import rigged models into the game, and pretty much abandoned the game, and only actually played the game after D:OS EE was released for Mac, and found out the about the tool Norbyte developed that allowed me to do exactly that.

Really hoping this is something we are able to do, if not when the game is published, at least soon enough.

Seconded.

Not a single 'true adventure creator' needs more 'ease of use' than already exists. The existing script languages in the game are simple as hell and pretty easy to learn, much easier than any better known programming languages.

The only problem, there is hardly any documentation at all for the API, and this makes scripting look 'complex'.
Using the existing languages is easy, understanding what all of the pre-defined API calls/queries/'events' do is hard as hell without documentation. (Because there are so many hidden details, that cannot be guessed by the API's names.)
No matter what new language they introduced, without API documentation, the situation would not improve at all, only syntax would change.
So I'd be totally against introducing any kind of new language since it would not get easier.

Instead I'd be all for releasing at least some documentation and on top of that more 'official presence' in the modding forum to answer questions, because it is in reality impossible to document every possible case in a released documentation.

The engine allows for great flexibility and with that flexibility comes a great lot of API calls (a lot more are even still missing), so the 'api documentation problem' needs to be solved, there is no 'language problem'.

Currently, modders have to do the trial-and-error method to find out how everything works for themselves, and if they happen to forget to share newfound insights in the forum, everybody has to do that again and again.

The tutorial videos Larian made when DOS first came out can serve as a very basic start, but they are far from sufficient.

Learning how to programm C (or C++) does not mean that you can program write programs for Windows without any further introduction (to concepts like messaging and a lot more) and documentation of the Windows API itself. (So basically, you need to get more information than what 'Kernighan & Ritchie' teaches you.)

Any plans to allow persistent worlds?

Persistent world like WoW?
There are no Larian servers and won't be any. So I don't think any persistent stuff is in the planing soon.

I was thinking of a persistent world ala Neverwinter. But again, DOS2 is not a MMORPG.

I think 4verse meant ala Neverwinter Nights, not Neverwinter the MMO.

There is only Neverwinter Nights for me.

/this

Agreed. Your comparing it to an MMORPG threw me. I've never considered NWN to be an MMORPG.

Maybe MMORPG is a bit excessive. but certainly multiplayer online.

How massive does the multiplayer have to be before it's massively multiplayer?

who knows... 100.000 users?

IMO the only thing that is needed to have an MMORPG is persistent world and social interaction in the world as a second important thing.
There is no specific number to create an MMORPG.
But well, this is not the goal of this specific topic :P

Yeah, it was a QMORPG, with the accent on quality rather than massively. I'm thinking that Shards Online is the only thing in development right now that really tries to capture that old persistent world vibe.

Most of the things I would like for the mod tools have been suggested, but I wanted to post this anyway, so it's visible that here is another user who is interested in these features.

The most important for me now that there is a dedicated team for the tools: better documentation, especially about the scripting part (which functiones exist, what does a function, what is returned from the function etc.).

What I would love to have from the mod tools is the power to make total conversions like Enderal [0] for Skyrim, Nehirim for Oblivion etc. (if the team is motivated enough, and the total conversions don't have to be this huge).

But my idea is smaller: I want to create Mafia (the party game) [1] with a few changes and twists with D:OS2.

This includes the official ability to import new static meshes, as well as new animated meshes like players, monsters etc. without relying on other players to create tools like these (if this is not possible due to licensing issues please communicate this in the forums when the game is released).

But also the ability to compose new music and sound effects and import them, as well as the ability to create new spelleffects (maybe with a particle editor inside the editor) and to import them.

This way we could for example make a sci-fi total conversion that has turn based battles like D:OS2, with unique spells/abilities, space stations instead of cities, but also uses the cool interactivity between characters from D:OS2 etc.

What I would also like is the ability for mods to use more players, and the gui (btw: I love your guis!) to support this when the game is started and the player has to create more than 2 chars.

[0] http://sureai.net/games/enderal/?lang=en
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_%28party_game%29

Not sure if this was mentioned before, and not sure if its the right place to ask/suggest this, but...

Morph Targets...

Does the Divinity Engine 3 supports it? Because one of the things I enjoy the most when I mod, is to tie/link the game progression to a visual/graphic component, like you had on Fable games (have done mods like that for Skyrim and XCOM 2).

For example, what I had in mind would be something like, the more you invest in stats such as strength/constitution/bodybuilding, the bigger/bulkier/muscular the character would become. Also... changing materials to properly update the normal maps to achieve the same purpose =P

It suuuuuuuuuucks but the general consensus is that people don't like that.

They want their super strong lithe characters and hate strong characters showing any muscle just because they are strong.

Which is a shame because I loved that part of Fable.

It's a good idea, but Fable implemented it poorly. I had a warrior woman. Eventually I added one point to strength, and she went from an athletic figure to being irreversibly fat. Not just muscle. I'm talking about some serious weight gain.

The most important thing is that the game remains attractive. If you want to reflect the character's stats in their appearance, you need to do it without undermining the attractiveness of the game.

Anyway, I think it's safe to say it's beyond the scope of D:OS2. Maybe the next one. XD

There are still a lot of ppl who think otherwise. I remember when I posted a video preview of my XCOM 2 mod on reddit, it harnessed a great deal of attention and positive feedback.



I agree with that, and either it was male or female characters, it was kinda meh... but what I like is the concept/design of having your character's body/look change according to its build/class

@NorD when will modding tools be testable? already in EA?

That is a huge question, if this is all post release this probably won't turn out to well in terms of adoption.

I know I'm a bit late to the party, but I would LOVE to be able to mod my own custom origins for people to download and play. That's the one thing I would want the modding tools to be able to accomplish.

My *fervent* hope is that skins will be very easily extractable and moddable (in addition to having plenty to choose from the start). I know that you've struggled to attract as full of a female audience, so let me tell you, it makes a big difference! Maybe some people think its silly, but I spend a *lot* of time in character creation mode - the look of my character really helps me set the tone for my story/adventure. I often rush to unlock the bedroom from the Homestead so that I can update my heroes looks again in-game.

Another skin comment is just that the faces from D:OS1 didn't work well on dark skintones. There also weren't really any fantasy skintones to choose from. Having the skins be more 'diversity-friendly' would be great (and progressive)!

I also agree with other posters about ease of 3d model replacements/additions for things like bodies, costumes/armor and hairstyles. It really helps with storytelling to have your super-buff warrior vs. a lithe assassin, or some tied up braids vs. long, flowing locks. Plus, you'll make everyone who wants bigger boobs in game happy. #smh

I helped work on this (non-official) mod tool for the Sims 4 - it might be a good reference for ease of use, 3d previewing, texture extraction, etc: http://www.sims4studio.com/board/31/downloading-sims-4-studio

Thanks very much for listening - I can't wait to play!

To add to my previous post: I would like better programming capabilities. Thanks to that people can make a Diablo 2 game, a turn based total conversion, Starcraft Universe (a 3rd person RPG) etc. with the Starcraft 2 Editor.

What I also would love to see is the possibility for the modder to create his/her own GUI's, ideally with a small GUI builder that uses the same style as the main game, so the GUI's integrate well with the overall look of the game (ideally with the ability to use custom png/dds/whatever files to customize this in case someone makes a total conversion).

The possibility to change how characters gain AP during combat would also be nice - for example gaining AP only while dealing or receiving damage etc.

If we could expose functions from our mods to the GM mode that would also be great (the first post in the GM mode thread already mentioned this, but I really like the idea).

I guess I want a "larian rpg maker".

While I agree with this, I'd just like to point out that race is more than just black and white.

There are Asians (of various ethnicities), for example. There's even different kinds of black people. It would be insulting to have an African black actor portraying an Aboriginal Australian black person, for example, as they have distinctly different facial features.

I'd love for them to improve diversity in character creation, but I'd like to ask for caution. A lot of Americans expect that diversity should be portrayed from a very American perspective, without understanding that internationally, the topic is actually a lot more complex. You don't get diversity just from consuming American media.

modding tools not in alpha for the time being: https://twitter.com/larianstudios/status/770901246366679040

That makes complete sense. There is no good reason to put modding tools into a game which is feature incomplete and changing on a very regular basis.

... as long as it does not take 5 months after release of the game for the editor to be released, which makes nobody interested in mods any longer because of the the great hype for the following game ...

At least in theory something like this could happen ... oh wait ...

Yeah imo they need to get them out asap, this news I'll just lower my expectations, there really has been little talk on what is in and what is out. Surely most of what they hope to have has had to been decided. Timing is a big part of building a modding community.

To note several survival games that are in EA and always changing have mod tools.

I think it is because even Larian doesn't know... or are so unsure as to the final result they don't reveal their current plans.

I wish developers could be more open and transparent... but then again I know that their audience isn't EXACTLY understanding either when it comes to development changing.

I'll chime in and add my opinion that the mod tools should not only be released during early access, but should be a PART of early access and they game shouldn't have full release until it's polished.

There is always a point in time when they simply MUST release a game if fully polished or not or they go bancrupt.

Releasing the modding tools early also somehow puts them into a situation where they'd have to provide at least a little bit of support.
They do not even have time to support the current one that IS already released.

Be patient.
As long as the tools are released around the time of the game's release, everything should be fine. Was fine in Classic. EE had the problem of D:OS2 already way too visible on the horizon from the beginning, releasing the editor 5 months too late added to that.

The difference being that D:OS2 has (or should/will have) dedicated mod tools support. I remember a line like "a team will be hired to exclusivly work on the mod tools" or something like that.



Yeah, better get the mod tools out in a polished state. [0] Otherwise it might turn away the more casual modders, which are required in order to spread the word about the modding capabilities of DOS2, which might attract more modders who didn't know about DOS2 in general, or the modding tools in specific.

On the other hand I agree that feedback from the community as early as possible is also very important. Maybe make a private beta of the mod tools for the most dedicated [1] modders of DOS1, and when their feedback is incorporated, make it a public beta (in the hope that by now the tools are stable/easy enough so the more casual modders don't get turned away).

btw: anecdotally Skyrim, probably one of the poster childs when it comes to a large modding community, released in november 2011, and the mod tools in february 2012, which seems like a good time window between base game and editor release to the overall public (I believe modders from their previous games participated in a beta).

[0] and hopefully not dumbed down - stability over usability any day for me :o
[1] yeah, subjective, and there might be many modders who were really dedicated/active but didn't post in the mods section.

And I remember something like "console development will not change anything for the pc version"
(I have a skill icon stuck to my mouse cursor for sale, if anyone wants ... and a broken initiative bar ... ;-)

Plans can and will change as do timelines. If that was not the case, D:OS2 would be out this fall. And we do not necessarily get all info about changed plans.


I don't know.

Although the EE editor loves to crash - only on exit which is weird -, it never corrupted any of my data so far, I don't know if a close/open beta is required. But then, I only know about scripting stuff, of all modeling and graphics stuff I have no clue.
(If they don't change anything about the scripting languages, and I don't see why they should, because they are good enough, I could theoretically start right away ... only if D:OS2 is still as good as D:OS1 was of course, I have to be interested in the game itself to become interested in modding it. And only if they keep the amazing flexibility that the D:OS1 engine has of course.)

The last 'time window' between game release and editor release hurt the modding community a lot. Because it pushed the release of the editor so close to the next hype, that it never really took off.
After D:OS2 is released, the hype for the next game will start, so better release game and editor at the same time without any 'time window'.

After all, they use the editor to make the game and there has been nothing indicating that Larian has time travel capability to produce the game with the editor from the future ...
They released the classic editor around the time when classic was released, and classic must have been released under a lot of time pressure.

If they have such a big time span between game and editor release again as was the case with EE, other games - including the next one from Larian - will have diverted player interest and few modders only will be interested to work for an almost empty audience.

Guess it has already been said (didn't read everything sorry) but the possibility to create our own Abilities/Skills/Talents/Status seems important.

What can be interesting (but I think too complicated) is the ability for DM to create custom "rulesets" with full customization of attributes and combat mechanisms.

Reading a little on Masters of Orion and someone dropped this and is how I feel with mod tools:

Not shipping with mod support was a mistake, and a large one. Stellaris had mod support in EA and as of now, 3,021 mods are available through the Steam Workshop.

I understand DOS2 will ship with mod tools, but having them in EA fosters success. I hear we'll have them later in EA, good, hope it is a major step forward.

If not the tool, at least documentation: that way, people can begin with simple replacers/txt edits (for gameplay), and then we move on to different things.

@Raze, @norD, any opinion?

I'd be happy with "Adventure Creation/Realtime-GM Tools" allowing non-developers/programmers/scripters to create adventures and publish them ASAP followed by more advanced Mod/script/developer tools.

I really think we need "push-button" publishing simplicity (ala Neverwinter Online Foundry and Sword Coast Legends). I think "storytellers and GMs" are probably a far more massive target audience than scripters and 3-d artists and terraforming world builders.

I also want to suggest that, like XCOM, most (all) resources from the previous game should be available in the toolset.

If all of them is unfeasible, please consider at least Skeletons/animations/VFX.

It goes without saying that if this material is already used by the second game, there is no need.

I'm all for releasing early, but they also need to write better/more documentation (this should idealy happen while developing the game, but often times there is no time for that if I look at software projects in general) etc. What I wanted to say was that the time window that Skyrim had was alright without killing the interest, and should Larian require the time to make the editor better, they should take it. I don't think anyone want's such a large gap between game and editor like the Enhanced Edition ;o)

Yes.

Classic Original Sin had two major advantages when modding was concerned: the editor came out almost the same time when the game was released and it could grow up without the next child in the queue already. It also received some support from Larian.
When EE came out, the kickstarter campaign for D:OS2 was already over and the loud majority was already only talking about D:OS2 and nothing else since then. The delay with the editor did the rest to bury modding. It seems that the only mods that somehow took off were those made without the editor, long before it was released.

And yes, documentation. That is huge.
(It's not exactly easy to have to find out what every single Osiris call really does, especially when quite a lot of it is pretty unexpected or does not work under certain circumstances ;-)

This is more Steam Workshop related - Make it possible to change the Steam Workshop Icon of your mod without deleting it/reuploading it.

Other games have this ability so I assume it's possible.

Hey Larian,
Can we get access to some database for PvP or an API to connect to be able to host tournaments. I'd love to see any way possible to automate a way for tournaments and stat tracking. PvP love those kinds of things even though it may not be the main focus of the game.
Thanks,
Armageden

These were a few things that were hard coded in D:OS and made it difficult to fully implement my ideas. I hope to see mod-able (and new) Damage types, Surface types, Surface type interactions, Talents, Abilities, and Attributes

Something new i would like to see is an ability like Push, when you can push characters or objects in a direction until they hit a wall, character, or object. Damaging and applying effects the struck object and/or themselves, potentially another pinball like effect can happen.
Specific examples are a Battering Ram that can Pin, push all away from character, a pull all in area to a point.
Ledges would then be a lot more dangerous and more fun to play with.

I have never tried to change the 'Examine Screen' but it would be cool if a modder can set up what the player sees when they 'examine' something (including pictures and dare I say video/gifs?).
This would include hiding or revealing certain items depending on the character (and their attribute/skills/etc) examining it.

It is necessary to make a sort for inventory.

Guys, remember that this thread is supposed to be about the modding tools. XD

I am a huge Hotbar user. Currenly playing D:OS EE again and find the hot bar system inadequate. Some suggestions:

1)Stretch the hot bar up 2 or 3 times shwoing 4 or 5 bars at the same time.

2) Stretch from side to side and use the whole bottom of the screen.

3) Extra bars. Vertically on the left and right side of the screen.

Both of my main characters in D:OS EE have all 5 completely full. Thanx Loved the game.

Please please add a level scaling option. As this would open the doors for respawnable enemies and making higher level gamers. The level scaling doesn't even have to be perfect. just have enemies scale to the level of the highest team member.

Dear developers. Please make sure that the books read were noted in the inventory. For example they can be made by gray, but not normal read color.
Уважаемые разработчики. Пожалуйста, сделайте так, чтобы прочитанные книги отмечались в инвентаре. К примеру их можно сделать серыми, а не прочитанные нормального цвета.

This may probably come as weird, but I personally wouldn't mind the ability to set a specific soundtrack to play during specific fight (and only during the fight). I'd just LOVE to fight a dragon with this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsg664cyf1c

awesome soundtrack playing on the background.

Any idea if there will be some pre-launch build available to the alpha/beta users, to give us a jump start on getting content built for this one? I've had some ideas mulling around in my head, but don't want to spend the time modelling it in the old toolkit when I'll be building with the new one anyhow.

Yea, would love to have level scaling tool. It'll be a great addition imo.

They are using WWise, so they definitely need to give specific attention to music.

First and foremost: In-depth documentation of the toolkit. Literally today, after 2 weeks of modding, after making a lovely level and coming up with a story for it I became discouraged by a road block in form of lack of proper documentation how to set scripts right and where so that they would compile without errors (Your own scripts, not mine) like those saying that "character player is not defined" in one of the main game wall-of-text scripts.
For me using DOS1 engine is like trying to drive a car and having to call different people to ask them how to do it and them telling me that very few of them actually know how to drive this car. Or like needing to be an IT engineer in order to use the SatNav.
I hope you know what I mean.
I hope I am making any sense.
Peace.

Yes, totally.
Documentation is needed for sure

I have a question to the developers:
Since D:OS 2 doesn't use bodybuilding and willpower as part of a RNG based enemy/crowd control and resistance system, did you also remove this feature from the engine or is it still in place but not used? So will it be possible to use the old system (or a similar one) for main campaign modding and standalone modules?
I think many of us hope for more possibilities with the updated engine and editor. New serious restrictions to core mechanics would take away a lot of potential from D:OS 2 modding.

That's a very smart question, one that I support completely. Could we hypothetically revert to the BB system if we wanted?

I'd like to add the ability to modify the names and benefits of attributes and abilities, and potentially even the ability to add or remove them, as well as the amounts gained per level, to the list of functions modding tools should have.

There's been lots of good discussion on how the stat system in D:OS2 should work, and by now it's quite clear that many of the ideas superior to what we currently have/will get won't make it in simply because of Kickstarter obligations.

This is very specific, but I hope OnCharacterStatus, CharacterGetStatusSourceCharacter, and CharacterRemoveStatus will be able to take specific CONSUME statuses. Makes custom status design clumsy or impossible in some cases. It would also be nice to be able to create Auras with CONSUME statuses.

I also have found ItemGetStat to be really limited, making it difficult to check what kind of item a character has used. It seems like only weight and vitality can be taken.

There were also some serious limits to crafting. There were lots of things you couldn't add to objects with a crafting recipe, like weapon on-hit effects, +skills, damage reflection, etc.

I also the functionality to add on-hit conditions to armor would work. Moreover, adding various proc conditions would be awesome, like On Miss or On Attack of Opportunity, On Backstab, etc. Some of these seemed to be in the code, but I never could get anything but Self:OnHit:weaponproc to work.

So I've noticed SOMEBODY "fixed" the ExtraProperties "bug" where incorrectly inputted text there would get displayed on the item.

E.g.

data "ExtraProperties" "This text will get displayed on the weapon!"

This was super useful for describing intricate or non-obvious modifiers on items. Unless there's another avenue for putting descriptions on randomly generated items, it would be nice to see this bug unfixed. :P

Edit: However, I will add that the new way statuses are designed gives me the impression that the issues with "consume" statuses being difficult to work with in the scripts may have been solved. Haven't tested, but I hope we'll be able to catch specific custom statuses with CharacterGetStatusSource and the like. So yay if this works out.

Hello fellow developers I have some questions for you! when do you plan to release the game on early access if it is of course not a secret? and tell me if right now to begin to take the first Chapter in Fort joy that I can continue through the game after release?

The game is released in Early Access. More than Chapter 1 won't be available in EA, as far as I know.

So far every patch made old saves unusable for the updated version.

Did your question implied release the editor on early access? Because from what I read you want to know when the game will be in early access, which is for a couple of months now.
The editor will be released with the full game.

I don't remember if there will be a reset when the game will be released. Raze might know.

Beta saves will not be compatible with the release version.
As stated above, each major update during the alpha/beta breaks save compatibility, as well. After release, all updates will maintain save compatibility.

Does anyone have any links or sources that confirm that the Modding Tools will be available in EA?

Quite the contrary, all the reports I have seen are that GM mode and the modding tools will not be available until release.

I did manage to find a few social media updates from around August that seem to indicate that the modding tools (not GM Mode) will be available in the later states of Early Access, but I haven't seen a definitive yes or no on the topic.

Edit, I also found This Tweet that seems to indicate that modding tools will not be in Early Access. Hopefully we can get confirmation one way or the other.

GM Mode will only be available on release, this has been stated many times by the dev team.

This! Even further, I wouldn't mind a hybrid, with the following variables:
- Flat cc resist if armor is active (>0)
- % based cc resist for armor (eg at half physical armor, physical cc chance reduced by half this value)
- Base spell cc chance
- Bonus chance per caster offensive stat
- Reduced chance per target defensive stat (bodybuilding,willpower)

Ideally, this could make cc possible (10-30%) through armor, but if you want to be sure of cc then you had better deplete enemy armor.

Ideally the editor would be powerful enough to handle redoing the cc system to something like this, but if not hardcoding these values in would allow for flexibility between a DOS2 system, and one more like DOS/dnd

While I am at it, a few other things I would like to be able to do:

1) Limit skill usage. Disable skills outside of combat, to keep exploration / healing consumables interesting, instead of teleport and heal spam. Additionally, the option of making abilities more limited, either by costing another resource (e.g. mana), or by having a set number of charges that are occasionally replenished (I think this last one is more DnD style? Would be a popular option to have with GM mode bringing their interest)

2) The ability to redo the action points to be more like DOS, eg. variable and higher start, max, and regen of AP.

3) I know GM mode won't have scripting, but the ability to interact with mod tool's scripting would be appreciated. For example, this would solve the complaints about companions. The GM could have a script to save the currently selected NPC, and then recreate it whenever the party moves to the next map, activated by a button press.

Theoretically everything you requested is already possible. You could give some or all skills "combat" requirements and require source points and just make source way more common. You could tweak all the AP costs of everything for more granularity. I do think GM mode will have access to pre-written scripts somehow (e.g., placing a script on a character). That would be a massive limitation if not.

Something like rebalancing the AP costs of everything would be a ton of work to get the balance right, but I don't think would be too hard to actually do it. AI scripts might be a pain to reconfigure, but they'd probably work okay even with no changes. I don't think that kind of project would be worth the hassle, but for many things even in the original game, if there's a will there's a way to mod something.

Implementing a resist system could be tough if the old system have been entirely scrapped. Even if you could resuscitate bodybuilding/willpower, it'd be a good amount of work to tweak things to be as granular as you suggested. I think it'd be possible but you'd have to be creative, or maybe just kind of brute force it by basically recreating a fake version of every status in the game which would go through resist checks, and then apply the real statuses if the check goes through.

So in the process of scripting my bard class, I've found many things much easier than the previous game. Being able to define statuses and use CharacterGetStatusSourceCharacter and the like on my custom statuses alone enables so much stuff much more easily.

But boy do I really want a CharacterApplyStatusToCharacter command. As far as I know right now you have to force a character to cast a skill or designate a projectile coming from one character to another, which is rather clunky.

Or be able to add a source character to CharacterApplyStatus E.g., (CharacterApplyStatus(_Victim,Status,Duration,Force,SourceChar). Maybe something like this already exists, not sure, but if not, then this would be very nice.

I'm trying to modify the racial stats a bit, but I've found that all the starting characters seem to draw from the human male stats entry. Even though the root templates for the other races seem to point to the other race stats. Not sure what's going on here, but it would be nice to modify each individual race so it would change in character creation.

new entry "HumanMaleHero" // the entry every race seems to use
type "Character"
using "_Hero"

I also have some general feedback on the stat files. While I can create new stat files and make additions (new skills, weapons, character stats, etc.), I cannot seem to modify an existing stat entry (e.g., modifying fireball) by making a new stat file that contains only that stat entry. I have to copy the entire stat file (e.g., skilldata.txt) to my mod and make changes to that file. I believe this is the case for every file type.

I don't know if you already have plans to make mods more compatible with each other in some other way, but to me, this would be a great first step to make it easier for people to combine different mods. Right now if two people were to make changes to different vanilla skills in skilldata.txt, people would have to manually merge the changes. If modders could simply make their changes to vanilla things in separate files, it would be easy for people to combine mods.

Don't know how difficult it would be to make this change, but IMO, it or some other compatibility change is necessary for a thriving modding scene. I'm sure you're already aware of these issues, but just letting you know some of us want them solved :P

Edit: Also there seem to be some stat files that you can't even make separate files for additions. You can't seem to add new delta modifiers outside of the deltamodifiers.txt file, for example. The above changes would be less useful if some files still required full replacement.

Hello all,

Plz norD, don't make just import/exports tools for 3dMax. There are lot of artists using other softwares (Maya, MODO, Blender..). Would be awesome if we can get suppor for FBX (the most used one) and OBJ to be able to interchange the files to other programs :)

Thank you!

Does anyone remember Neverwinter Nights Aurora Toolset? Similar features to that would be great.

I apologize that this is vague and most likely not helpful.

In my younger days, I created massive campaigns using the Aurora Toolset and have been searching for something with similar functionality for 10+ years. Nothing would make me happier than to have the functionality (and ease), that was Aurora, brought to this masterpiece of a game.

There have already been a few of us in the Game Master forums talking about potential custom campaigns, so yes we have some NWN veterans kicking around. I don't expect anything quite on the level of the Aurora toolset when it comes to ease of use, but from what bits we have heard it sounds like the new modding tool will be far better than the first one.

Thanks for the reply, Windemere. New to the forums, but very excited to hear that there are other veteran NWN modders here.

Great, welcome to the forums.

Is any of your work on the Neverwinter Vault?

I agree on the FBX format, most of us use more softwares than 3ds Max.
My concerns about modding are on how unflexible the system is. I know that we are bound to the Divinity combat core and mechanics system but i Think we need heavy modifications to achieve a level of creativity freedom such as in NWN:
1) I said this in other thread but...The mod for D:OS1 for allowing more player was clunky, and only gave to players control over henchmen. D:OS2 allows only 4 players, don't know yours, guys, but my group usually has 6 or even 7 players. I mean we won't even buy the game if the multiplayer for custom campaigns won't allow all of us to play.

2) Changing the aspect of the game: Using 3d we can make new objects and stuff but. How difficult would be to import new races, animations, or FX into the game? Also a mod for controlling the cameras (Allowing the DM to make custom setups for places or scenes, or the players to play in a 3rd-person perspective) would be a game changer

3)Modularity. I think the games that allow mods that survive, grow, and thrive are the modular ones. World of Warcraft has a shitty, slow, and crappy lua scripting system but it allows to change and improve aspects of the game since everything is a separated module, so if you change something you don't screw up the whole game. Also that makes mods easier, specially the ones that are related with UI-modification.

4)Expandible, this goes with the last one. Maybe there are 5 races in the game, but what if we like to change them or better, do more? How about the DMs (that will be a lot) that wanna play in their D&Ds settings and need characters like gnomes, half-orcs or things like that? If we can model it and animate it, we need a clean system to import them to the game

Hello Nord,

I need some help on finding some scripts for code programming & modding tests;

1-Which script file is working on after a party member died ?

2-Which script file is working on when party is dead and return to load screen ?

2-Which script file is working on when using a resurrection scroll ?

Thanks.

Hello Yuhnis, I would love to be able to help you but I'm a Level Designer . Meaning that I don't script a single thing in the game. Gameplay Scripters are there for that. I do the maps, haha.

I guess that you could create a topic exactly for your questions. Other modders may be able to help you on this.

All of a character's character scripts stop running when the character dies. There is not really much generic Osiris (= story) script code that does something when a character dies, apart from checking whether all player characters are now dead and if so, trigger code to show the "Game Over" dialog box. That dialog box itself is completely handled by code, but as implied, script can prevent it from being shown (I don't remember by heart whether it's triggered from Shared or from the DOS2 campaign Osiris code though).


No script in particular gets run.


No particular script. Resurrection is a skill, and after a character has been resurrected, the Osiris event CharacterResurrected() gets raised.

I can probably give you more concrete feedback if you say what you want to do.

PS: As NorD said, it's better to start a separate topic to discuss concrete question. I get notifications for all posts on this forum, so I will see it too.

Larian asked for modders to go to Belgium to discuss the tool. What became of it?

It happened.

No really. I had no idea. So I guess their valuable feedback was taken into account?

They used the editor for a week and created some small mods in that period. They're under NDA, so they can't discuss the details. However, having them over definitely helped improve the tool and overall modding flow. Maybe even some new scripting APIs will come out of it.

That's the answer I was looking for. Specifically, I am hoping user input allowed the editor to be more user-friendly.

I'm hoping the wall editor works better than it did in the first game.

That was the only thing I found somewhat annoying, especially the roofs.
Still a great concept though.

Is the game shipped with the modding tools or we have to download them from somewhere? And will they be available from day one?

Yes, it's shipped with the game on day 1.

I wonder if it is possible to change how races and origins work so their racial skill, racial power, and origin power become selectable by the player.

I just learned about this game and planned modding tool, and came to check it out. As another veteran NWN modder, I too find it intriguing and would like to learn more.

Good to see you, Andarian! (JasonNH from the old NWN2 community)

Is this still the case?

With the Modding tools being delayed, has anyone found any semblance of a developer console as of yet? It was mentioned in this thread multiple times, but no word of it since.

There will be a console, but I believe it will come with the editor. Editor will probably be released today or tomorrow.

We can already download the tools from steam in Library-Tools.

\o/

With the editor out, anyone got news on console commands?

With a bit of digging answered my own question.

To activate console commands both for the base game and the editor - navigate to your Divinity Engine2 Directory, and find ReCon.exe. This is a remote utility for entering console commands. The commands can be found here:
https://docs.larian.game/Command_list

On this page there is a broken link to commands relating to givetreasure, as seen here: http://fileserver-dmz/mediawiki/index.php/Give_armor_and_skills

Will be testing them now, I'll report back with anything interesting.

Edit: My bad folks, it looks like ReCon.exe was never meant to work with the SP, and the wiki page has changed to specify as such.

Is there any word on when Plug-in API for Editor/Modding will be released for expanding Editor/Modding capability?

For starter, I am interested in making a script engine that run on CoreCLR so we could use C# for scripting our mods. At least this way, we can take advantage of Object Oriented Programming, Intellisense Support in Visual Studio and other IDE, and so forth.

I would love this I would like to at least be able to create these features

- greyscale heightmap importer
- Dungeon map creator

examples

-https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/prefab/area/terrain-importer-3-v123
-https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/other/tool/nwn2mapper-taken-sothis-b?qt-recent=0

(ok first one is mine ...)

Suggestion for the tool: plugin support.

Like the DA1 editor was supposed to get, and never happened, third party plugin support would allow developers to make potentially unknown functionalities happen in the editor.

Can the default for projects not be Steam, Shared to all? I would prefer my testing be local or steam / private.

[quote=Dark_Ansem]Suggestion for the tool: plugin support.

Like the DA1 editor was supposed to get, and never happened, third party plugin support would allow developers to make potentially unknown functionalities happen in the editor. [/quote]

It would allow us to replace some parts of the modding experience that is not easy to grasp for beginners or experts alike with something that is more intuitive.

This should be a #1 priority for Editor if they want to salvage any chance of success with their editor/modding, people are upset with the experience of trying to use this editor right now.

Can I create terrain using a heightmap?
I didn't notice such an opportunity in the engine.

There is no such tool in the editor, but Celludriel made one for DOS and looks to be investigating for DOS:2. Go Celludriel!

I just realized something when using the editor, where is the license agreement? The only thing that is under help is just a website link to documentation, but nothing on licensing of the editor. The license is not even under under Divinity Original Sin 2 Engine directory in Steam Library folder.

Who can I contact in private regarding on the topic of extending the editor?

MORE WORKSPACES / LAYOUTS to save and load and WIZARDS please.

I would really appreciate more workspaces and layouts which are available in the options bar. So far as i figured out there is only on layout of the editor i can save and reload. I would like to have more options there and better even more default workspaces like lots of professional creative software. e.g. Terrain (where is the MaterialResource Window?) / Placeables (with big preview window) / NPC (with big preview window) / Instances and so on

I guess lots of initial complaints about the complexity of the editor comes from the overwhelming default layout. Myself coming from NWN2 editor i can understand certain people complaining but have to say at the end it is not so different at all, just less intuitive because of lots of more powerful options popping up.

Some Wizards could be extremely helpful like setup

• new terrain (input base texture and paint terrain textures and (materialresources), size, heightmap plug-in. AI Generation and Startpositions automatically)
• Creating a new NPC
• Importing a new texture and assign to a model and save it as a new root template
• simple quest creation

All I want is a type of control/key map. Like something to tell me what I need to press to "do" something in the level editor window. Like knowing what are all the zoom controls, how to 'center' on an object and whatnot.

Edit: woo whoo, found them.

Can you elaborate where? I would like to know this as well (sure lots of people would). Thanks

Options > Preferences, or press Ctrl + P. When the window pops up look for Default Controls, and another section called Controls for the rest. The Terrain Editor has a few controls specific to it as well in there.

We need to talk about NPCs
As far as I know from some videos, creating them is a bit messy, we have to work from a copy from another one (Ex: A guard) when the most normal approach would be: New Npc>Set Race>Set Gender>Be able to choose from ALL options of heads, beards, and armors>Choose a preset class for his skills/Add skills.
I mean It's quite absurd that if I want to create a civilian (F.Ex the village's doctor) I could only choose from civilian clothes when some of the pieces of armor that would look cooler are in, I don't know, mage, f. ex.

Hi, when i click on the Story Editor i have a lot of error message boxes that appear, saying something like "goal does not exist but is referenced as a target", and if i build, i have some errors because some lines aren't prefixed by DB_, but those are native scripts.
I tried creating new projects but still.

nvm, i just checked files with steam and it worked again

I'm but it's not that easy anymore, well the heightmap is but now there is also a vertex section in the file ... I have no idea how to handle that part yet ... Need more information to get that going. Hopefully it's even still possible now.

I will have more news during the week after experimentation. I can recycle most of my D:OS one so that's positive

I just got into the modding program yesterday. it sounded simple from everything I had read but upon getting into it I now see why the only tutorials on youtube are level modding. It seems the main focus.

It would be nice to have a section where you don't have to render a world just a single gui. So character page loads up and you can select what you want to mod just like you would select it in game. or have an add new button. or open an item inventory and select/add items to modify.

I have never been interested in world modding just character/item modding which is simple enough in .xml or .lsf but I would rather build a mod than edit the base code as such. If there is already a way to mod the base code and put it into a Divinity Engine 2 Mod it would be great to have a tutorial.

Thanks for reading,
Baki

That's already there. You pick Add-On , and then you just use the Stats Editor.

You need to go through the Larian Wiki and learn how the tool works, there is a Stats Edit tool that functions like an Excel Spreadsheet to edit those .txt files you would normally have to painfully edit by hand.

Man, I wish I could prevent the Browser window from opening every damn time I load a project...

Wow, all I want to do is modify a few scripting behaviors so I can get a hang of it.
I could bash my head against [https://docs.larian.game/Scripting] until I get something working, but you usually study working code to get something. So I go to [https://docs.larian.game/Script_editor], and the page feels it's necessary to explain what "File" Menu does and it shows a bunch of scripts in a screenshot as if to tease, but never mentions how to actually open that Shared solution.
At this point I'm like 90% sure that it has something to do with the packing and unpacking thing that everyone knows all about, but although I can make sense of the unpacked files, I have no clue how to work with them.
I heard about the steep learning curve but...wow

It'd be incredibly nice if we were able to set specific weapon types for skills, such as requires an axe, spear, etc. Since the dagger is the only melee weapon that has this distinction I imagine it'd be possible to implement the other requirements.

This may have already been suggested, there are a lot of replies here but...

Please give us a way to create our own combat skills. Idk how hard this would be but it seems like data.txt and data-data.txt has the key and some kind of script associated with the key. What we seem to not have access too is the bridge between combat skill and the effect of said combat skill. This prevents us from creating new combat skills and new effects or modifying any of the existing combat skills.

Really sad considering we have the ability to create new skills but no way to link them to a new combat skill.

Pretty please with sugar on top.

Glad you split up modding into several forums. Definitely was too much activity for just one or two forums to keep up.

How exactly do you communicate the release of new editor versions?

Does this error mean there is a new editor version on GOG Galaxy?
"The resource file is newer (version: 3.1.3.4) than your code version (version: 3.1.3.1)."

GOG doesn`t show version numbers for additional download files.

I'd love to know that as well. Earlier today I wanted to start an adventure project. However I couldn't even add component to the terrain at the start. Got the same error about version being incompatible. Shame since I had a lot of time today to get started on it.

yep editor is broken for now - its doable but its a pain

New editor versions will be communicated by me.
I'll start a patch notes thread that will be updated every time.
I wasn't available on Friday, hence no patch note thread
I will make one as soon as we addressed the critical issues we have now with the patch (some critical editor data was not updated alongside the game data). I made a post about it here

How does updating the engine work by the way? Does it happen automatically through GoG Galaxy? Or should I download a new version from there manually after seeing the patch notes? Or is there an update options through the engine itself?

GOG puts the engine data in a separate download, you'll have to download that again once they update it, and copy it to the correct folder, same as when you installed it the first time. There is no automatic update available for that procedure.

Ok. any idea how long it will take GoG to make the download available? From my experience they're usually relatively slow with that.

Just downloaded and copying files around. hope its the updated version already

Good Day,

I just downloaded the engine files from GoG Galaxy. Copied the files over the respective folders, as per mention by instructions in the text file. Going through the basic steps from the tutorial I get the following. It is still the same issue I am having since last weekend.

Any suggestions??

https://imgur.com/1hycRi1

https://imgur.com/a/tC63a

Sadly it's not. I actually don't understand why updating the editor takes longer than the game. Especially since there are no installers etc. involved.

guess i won't be modding any time soon then :'(

Hey Giblix,

that means that download still contained the old data. I would contact GOG and ask them. In the meantime, I'll also contact them and see if I can get you more information on how to update

Sincerely,
Kevin

Hoi Kevin,

I went to all folders to remove all files to prevent any old downloads getting in the way. When unpacking I overwritten old files. Didn't remove entire folder there since I didn't knew if "Editor" contained other files besides the ones from the engine or not.

Thanks for the assist. will contact gog soon.

Would it be possible to make using the editor not switch my game to run in windowed mode instead of fake fullscreen. It's a fairly minor issue, but damn does it annoy me.

I agree. I'm constantly changing the view back when I launch the "real game".

It would also be nice if we could make the editor use a specific profile, and not have that setting override our real game profile setting.

So you could specify "Debug Profile" for the editor, and "B3stG4m3r420" for your actual profile when launching the game directly.

Just submitted a customer support inquiry to GoG. We'll see what/if something happens

Making progress. With the help from GoG customer service I was able to download the file Kevin send to GoG last friday. It seems if you download through the website you get the correct file. Through Galaxy client you do not for some reason.

Did a clean install of DoS2 + Engine Editor. No more version discrepancies and you might think its time to get working. Another issue arose hehe...

"Syncing fixedstring (null), if possible register it in the networkfixedstrings. Only allow it when it's not used too often (levelswap, ...)" <-- it is the only error debug is providing. and I still can't assign a TR_ texture to start working on a map. Assume its due to this message.

Hey Giblix,

That message is generally just a warning. I'll note down to see if we could possibly just hide it from the public version.

For your issues with the terrain assignment. Could you make a post of that in the Troubleshooting forum? Possibly with a screenshot. We'll address it there and that way other's will more easily find the answer if they run into the same issue

Sincerely,
Kevin

Heya! o/

Is there any chance to get a new sub on the forum for like a showroom of maps etc? I wanna see peoples efforts and such, if they do mapping/terrain etc. Saw already a few screenshots/threads of some maps, which were fantastic! I wanna see more, so I can grab a few ideas from other people etc. kinda stuck with my maps at the moment.
So I would highly appreciate it, if its possible! :)

cheers,

Actually, nevermind me. lol. Just found it by accident..

I was always looking in http://larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=75&page=1 and didnt find it, just gone back one more up and whoops.. got it. :D

Hola,

Made a quick recording and posted it in Troubleshooting.