Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Api/Addons
Hey folks,
From reading the part about playermods in
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/alright-lets-talk-roleplay/
I read about it more in
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/combat-rythms-vs-combat-ui/
In both it's not the actual theme so i want to use those as a basic to actually talk about <strong>playercreated mods for AoC</strong>.
If this discussion exists already, redirect me please, I searched around and asked in discord with no luck.
So to start of with especially in the combat rythms vs combat ui discussion, from what i gathered most negativity is directed towards <strong>addons that are needed to do activity xyz.</strong>
And it brings me to my biggest critizism, towards "anti-addon"
<strong>THAT is not the mods fault, period.</strong>
I want to see anyone trying to manage a 25man raid(specifically talking about WoW) as a healer without any modhelp to manage the live of your companions reliably, easely acessible and visualy prominent. Just use the standartui provided by WoW.
I don't know the state of the game, but up until 4 years ago I would call that impossible or at the very far side excruciating limiting drawing even more attention away from the fight.
It is the games fault to make addons necessery, or how I like to see it:
<strong> It is the games responsibility to enable us to customize and enhance our given tools if we deem it not good enough for what it wants from us.</strong>
If we have a holy trinity, I want to be able to optimize myselfe, even more so if we have actually challenging content were you are glad to be able to theorycraft and get more out of yourself. It's a whole dimension to talk, discuss, exeriment, try and play with.
If, and I'm talking about if, we have challenging PvE endgamecontent similar to WoW. I want to be able to discern what hit me how hard, I want to know what I did and how hard I hit with what I use.
I want to know how hard I can hit with different approches, not a guess, yeah roughly something like this or maybe that.
<strong>It's a side of the game i enjoy and embrase, not because it is necesserily needed, but it's fun.</strong> I'm a math person, it caters to that side.
There was talk about "need" of addons to have your hands in the market, and I will vehemently deny that. I used excel tabels and memory for it in a lot of games even in WoW and that was always enough to a degree that i could afford everything purely on playing the trading game. You do not need it, but it certainly is helpful to have it inside the game itselfe.
Having said that I want to go straight to one of the biggest pro arguments for me.
It is individuality.
Letting people create their own UI and encouraging them to express themselves is, for me, something I appreciate to a great extend. I can not stand the arrogance of some games that throw us something at our feets and say "we made it deal with it".
Yes people worked for it, some not so much, others to a great extend, and <strong>it would be a great disrespect to brush of the work that went into it</strong>, but we are talking about MMO. A genre were a lot of different people come together with <strong>different approaches, different playstyles, different goals.</strong> The game itself offers different content for different types of people.
It would be a feat to see anyone suceed in creating that one UI everyone likes that there is nothing to improve apon for any part of the community.
I think this is enough for an opening post to get us to talk about API/mod support.
Clearly, I am for it and would like to see it happen. I have a lot more to say, but for now I want to see us talking about it since it is a possible feature.
From reading the part about playermods in
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/alright-lets-talk-roleplay/
I read about it more in
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/forums/topic/combat-rythms-vs-combat-ui/
In both it's not the actual theme so i want to use those as a basic to actually talk about <strong>playercreated mods for AoC</strong>.
If this discussion exists already, redirect me please, I searched around and asked in discord with no luck.
So to start of with especially in the combat rythms vs combat ui discussion, from what i gathered most negativity is directed towards <strong>addons that are needed to do activity xyz.</strong>
And it brings me to my biggest critizism, towards "anti-addon"
<strong>THAT is not the mods fault, period.</strong>
I want to see anyone trying to manage a 25man raid(specifically talking about WoW) as a healer without any modhelp to manage the live of your companions reliably, easely acessible and visualy prominent. Just use the standartui provided by WoW.
I don't know the state of the game, but up until 4 years ago I would call that impossible or at the very far side excruciating limiting drawing even more attention away from the fight.
It is the games fault to make addons necessery, or how I like to see it:
<strong> It is the games responsibility to enable us to customize and enhance our given tools if we deem it not good enough for what it wants from us.</strong>
If we have a holy trinity, I want to be able to optimize myselfe, even more so if we have actually challenging content were you are glad to be able to theorycraft and get more out of yourself. It's a whole dimension to talk, discuss, exeriment, try and play with.
If, and I'm talking about if, we have challenging PvE endgamecontent similar to WoW. I want to be able to discern what hit me how hard, I want to know what I did and how hard I hit with what I use.
I want to know how hard I can hit with different approches, not a guess, yeah roughly something like this or maybe that.
<strong>It's a side of the game i enjoy and embrase, not because it is necesserily needed, but it's fun.</strong> I'm a math person, it caters to that side.
There was talk about "need" of addons to have your hands in the market, and I will vehemently deny that. I used excel tabels and memory for it in a lot of games even in WoW and that was always enough to a degree that i could afford everything purely on playing the trading game. You do not need it, but it certainly is helpful to have it inside the game itselfe.
Having said that I want to go straight to one of the biggest pro arguments for me.
It is individuality.
Letting people create their own UI and encouraging them to express themselves is, for me, something I appreciate to a great extend. I can not stand the arrogance of some games that throw us something at our feets and say "we made it deal with it".
Yes people worked for it, some not so much, others to a great extend, and <strong>it would be a great disrespect to brush of the work that went into it</strong>, but we are talking about MMO. A genre were a lot of different people come together with <strong>different approaches, different playstyles, different goals.</strong> The game itself offers different content for different types of people.
It would be a feat to see anyone suceed in creating that one UI everyone likes that there is nothing to improve apon for any part of the community.
I think this is enough for an opening post to get us to talk about API/mod support.
Clearly, I am for it and would like to see it happen. I have a lot more to say, but for now I want to see us talking about it since it is a possible feature.
0
Comments
My biggest gripe with addons is when they kind of make the game something different than what it is. WoW being a good example. WoW with addons and without are two totally different experiences. Having a voice yell "GET OUT OF THE FIRE OR YOULL DIE" as soon as you step in some fire, kind of removes a lair of difficulty. It removes the aspect of combat awareness and replaces it with a "do this when you hear this happen" kind of thing. Almost like Guitar Hero, I guess, where you see/hear a queue and then react. Without the addons that do that, you have to pay more attention and thus the game plays differently.
IMO the only addons that should be used are: something that lets you take quality notes on things you find (pretty much a word processor in game), something that lets you track damage done by/to you, and UI changes. Basically what you said should be in the game lol.
TL;DR: If the addons cause the core gameplay to change, I'm against it. WoW has a lot of "hand holding" addons which a majority of the player base uses, so the boss fights have to be more intricate/punishing as a result. Without them, the game would play differently.
I think you present a good argument @Grisu and I'm curious to see how AoC will approach this issue.
[quote quote=3880]the only addons that should be used are: something that lets you take quality notes on things you find (pretty much a word processor in game), something that lets you track damage done by/to you, and UI changes[/quote]
and I am absolutely against anything that dumbs the game down to the level of a simon says (re: WoW raid bot mods). There is a certain something to be said for expecting players to demonstrate some basic degree of competence before being routinely welcomed into the most challenging endeavors.
Sourdoughbred
#UO,EQ,AC,DAoC,WoW,EQII,LoTRO,Eve,W101,Trove,DP,EQLandmark(RIP),AA…AoC?
*What part of the gameplay is opened to the API?
*How can the devs keep the other part out of the API?
*Is it cosmetic or gameplay addons?
First two question are basicly tied quite close together, if you open one part of the gameplay up to API, can you keep it out of the other parts? From my experience even though you might only intend to open up the UI, people somehow find a way to get other parts of the game into the addons. People in general are very good at making "work around solutions", like: "Only UI is open to modding, well I get my dmg onscreen so if I just make a parser...".
And that basicly brings me to the last and first question, which addons can be made, is it cosmetic (e.i. UI) or gameplay (e.i. dmg-meter)?
If its purely cosmetic for the UI or that kinda thing, then sure good nuts. But as soon as you open up for "gameplay addons", you start down a "you need these addons to raid with us" path.
[quote quote=3878]
There was talk about “need” of addons to have your hands in the market, and I will vehemently deny that. I used excel tabels and memory for it in a lot of games even in WoW and that was always enough to a degree that i could afford everything purely on playing the trading game.
[/quote]
Not to be a smart ass butttt: Yes in WoW you can easily manage it with an excel ark and time, but thats because its one big auctionhouse. I'd like to see you try in something like ESO where its all guildtraders in different cities, at different prices etc.
I don't have one, but my friend has something that collects statistics everytime he opens an auctionhouse/guild trader in ESO. This means he knows basic pricing on every item he touches, where someone like me who only started recently again has no idea (and even if I was seasonned I probably wouldn't remember either). Seeing as AoC will be very "split up", I think it would be an incredible disadvantage if someone had an addons for getting statistics and prices that you didnt.
To round it off, I think addons/API for that is a real good thing, if its done properly. But as soon as you open the game up for this kinda thing, then you're on a dangerous path... (IMO)
So instead of one spreadsheet i have layers? It's not much different as being on several servers. I still don't need any addon, it sure is convenient tho to have it automated. Time is money.<strong>Just</strong> knowing the "right now"-price is not what you will need as a trader. Especially with a lot more factors like caravan supply and whatnot, sounds very organic and fluctuating.
Really exciting time to be a trader.<3
back to topic:
I absolutly agree with the concerns regarding "how far will it go" and I'm on board to "no raid bot" and similar attrocities. I'm not familiar with the api process, but I guess it hugely depends on how the game is written. In that regard, worst case szenario I can think off is that they have to open up everything, and use ressources to moderate/review the mods. Which in itself might not be such a bad idea, but I fully realize that it's time and money they have to spend so hm..
But over the years, I've come to appreciate and understand that sometimes the interface or user experience is an important part of the game design.
A recent example of this is the kerfuffle when WoW developers decided the camera could not be zoomed out to the extent it was before (which wasn't even available in the interface, players had to use a console command.) Players went bananas but Blizzard's stance was because of the game's design, being out that far was provdigin an experience they didn't intend.
I know that isn't UI, but it is part of the total UX... and they go hand-in-hand.
So these days, I'm not a fan of giving players too much control in changing the user experience in an MMO. Rearranging UI elements, of course... but beyond that, not much!
However, an API to get game data outside of the game for web services? All for it! :)
But over the years, I’ve come to appreciate and understand that sometimes the interface or user experience is an important part of the game design.
A recent example of this is the kerfuffle when WoW developers decided the camera could not be zoomed out to the extent it was before (which wasn’t even available in the interface, players had to use a console command.) Players went bananas but Blizzard’s stance was because of the game’s design, being out that far was provdigin an experience they didn’t intend.
I know that isn’t UI, but it is part of the total UX… and they go hand-in-hand.
So these days, I’m not a fan of giving players too much control in changing the user experience in an MMO. Rearranging UI elements, of course… but beyond that, not much!
However, an API to get game data outside of the game for web services? All for it! <img alt="?" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.2.1/svg/1f642.svg" />
[/quote]
Dangit forgot to put this in my post. More or less what you wrote. As long as they fix up the game so you don't miss anything thats to essential, then its just part of the experience.
I'm big in numbers so meters with multiple displays damage healing over heal threat interrupts all that stuff. However something like a trainer addon like DBM in WoW Exorsus or GTFO raid tools probably best left you if you don't realize standing in the stupid is a bad idea on your own you probably deserve the death you will inevitably take.