Future MegaMod Toolbar

[stiles]

i agee with estherhb and paniscus. the vanilla toolbar with a community icon. <abbr title="Colonial Charter">CC</abbr> and modders under that. BUT if the mod is just  housing then it should be under the housing.city buildings under the service icon and production under a production icon. then sets should go under the community icon also. kind of the best of both worlds in 1. theres times you build a village and want the buildings to match. there are also times you just want to add a school or a church without going thru every icon to see what looks good in this particular area.




  some of the expansion of the vanilla toolbar was good. where the confusion and clutter started is when mod sets came about. sometimes a mod will place under the icons and sometimes it becomes a set and adds another icon to the toolbar.each mod seemed to add itself in differently. wish the game itself would move all traders under the trader icon or all markets under markets,all barns under storage,etc. more uniform and done without modders having to rewrite all their mods.

[despo20]

8 hours ago, stiles said:




where the confusion and clutter started is when mod sets came about. sometimes a mod will place under the icons and sometimes it becomes a set and adds another icon to the toolbar.each mod seemed to add itself in differently. wish the game itself would move all traders under the trader icon or all markets under markets,all barns under storage,etc. more uniform and done without modders having to rewrite all their mods.

Exactly what I meant.




Someone prefer a toolbar ordered by modder, someone by function, but the goal should be to give the same order, the same structure, for all mods and buildings.




 

[Johntodd]

IDK who the modders are, so IDK what mod to select to build something.




 




Grouping by function FTW.

[Ketchup]

6 hours ago, Johntodd said:




IDK who the modders are, so IDK what mod to select to build something.




 




Grouping by function FTW.

thats mostly the problem ^^ half of the things inside megamod is not <abbr title="Colonial Charter">CC</abbr> things, but me, kid, ds, nec, ts.... and nobody knows us [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/tongue.png[/img]/emoticons/tongue@2x.png 2x" title=":P" width="20" />



by making the toolbars by moddler, it give the opportunity to people to know that <abbr title="Colonial Charter">CC</abbr> is not the only team / mod that exist on the planet but there is plenty very talented people who worked as hard as <abbr title="Colonial Charter">CC</abbr> crew ^^ did you know @Johntodd and others that right from the begining of colonial charter , first edition, i gave them all the work i did, and they included almost everything i did (except my 2-story 3-story houses i gave them too) inside <abbr title="Colonial Charter">CC</abbr> which represented a good 20% maybe more in the first release ? of course today it represent less % in <abbr title="Colonial Charter">CC</abbr> (and more % in <abbr title="MegaMod">MM</abbr>), but it gave them a very nice thumbs up to make them starting with tons of content [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/smile.png[/img]/emoticons/smile@2x.png 2x" title=":)" width="20" />



and nobody knows there are some talents ^^

[stiles]

no matter how i say this it will upset some. we do appreciated modders and all the work they do to make the GAMES we play more interesting.without ALL the modding games like simcity4,farm sim 2013,banished,etc,etc would not be the same.the modding takes lots of work and brings so much to our games.so i mean noooo disrespect to anyone at all.




   we seem to be stuck between 2 points. the modders having recognition and the ability tio place mods in the game to be user friendly. is there a solution to do both?? players who don't play every day or new players will find houses under houses,storage under storage,etc. if they have to open 10 icons searching for a house they like or a particular building that fits the area they are working on,they will get confused and frustrated. in reality a new player is not going to realize who various icons belong to anyhow.




  there are times that sets are better to be under a community icon like the medevil set,mission set,rowhouse set,etc. howver, a house,bakery,mill,market,hunter should go under the vanilla icons instead of being added to the toolbar individually or under the community icon either. it is easier to find a house under housing than opeing every icon. the idea of doing both made sence since even the sets could be broken into their proper parts. if you open the trader icon,it would list all the available traders. this is helpful for several reasons. sometimes 1 building won't fit an area but anotheer might. also the sets don't all include every needed buyilding. not all have a medical building,a blacksmith,a herbalist,a school,etc. so us players need to figure out what building will loook good with the set. i realize this makes modders work harder. as i said before,it would be nice if the game automatically places buildings under the icon it belonged to.then a set could be loaded and it would add under the community icon yet the individual buildings would add to their proper place as well. best of both worlds.




   you can throw me out and slap me if all that sounded rude. it isn't ment to be. us players are funny and srange. WE KNOW THAT. we all have our own ideas and style of playing. but that is what makes this a great game. we don't have to conform to rules and all play the same way. we can build this building and that 1. we don't have to build a whole set this way and make all our towns look the same.

[elemental]

There are so many mods, some big, some small. Every player will have their own preference as to how it's all arranged. But whichever way the menus and modding content are arranged, it really doesn't take very long to get used to them. It's not really that difficult and I dare say that Banished players are a little smarter (and more patient) than your average gamer. That comment isn't supposed to support one view or the other and isn't directed at anyone in here, it's just a comment.




Some people don't care who made what. They just want to play. That's fine.




But guess what? Modders are real people here on BL and also over at WOB. If you know who made your favourite buildings you can talk to them, thank them, give them suggestions and ideas for future mods or improvements for existing mods. Making content anonymous does kill the whole community aspect of modding.

[despo20]

I agree with Redketchup. Distinguish the work of every modder is important.

Mix all the mods under the functional categories, can lose their recognizability.




The purpose of MegaMod is to make compatible the greatest number of mods, not to mix them and make them anonymous.

[estherhb]

<a contenteditable="false" data-ipshover="" data-ipshover-target="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/3183-ketchup/&do=hovercard" data-mentionid="3183" href="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/3183-ketchup/">@Ketchup</a> I know this is a bit off the topic, but I've noticed there's a tendency to publish a lot of small or even one-item mods these days.  It's a real pain to upload many of these; one reason MedgMod is so popular.  At some point, any chance of you putting together a RedKetchup World mod of all of your great mods?  (Don't tell anyone but I would love to try playing with just that sometimes.) It might also encourage someone to do a YouTube showcasing just your mods - same for the other prolific modders [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/smile.png[/img]/emoticons/smile@2x.png 2x" title=":)" width="20" />



 

[Paeng]

1 hour ago, estherhb said:




I've noticed there's a tendency to publish a lot of small or even one-item mods these days

Well, that's not new or unusual... [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/smile.png[/img]/emoticons/smile@2x.png 2x" title=":)" width="20" />



Simcity has ~40.000+ published mods, and the vast majority are single units. Sure, we're far from that number, however they are rising here as well. Sooner or later players will need to break down their collections, away from an all-in-one huge mod... else the toolbar icons will just cover every bit of screen real estate  [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/biggrin.png[/img]/emoticons/biggrin@2x.png 2x" title=":D" width="20" />



Anyway, you have the <abbr title="MegaMod">MM</abbr> for now, that's pretty cool for those who like it. Personally, I go for the modular sets where I can pick and choose what I want to use.




This discussion will always end up 50/50... more or less  [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/wink.png[/img]/emoticons/wink@2x.png 2x" title=";)" width="20" />



 

[QueryEverything]

If I may, I find the concept that <abbr title="MegaMod">MM</abbr> makes modders anonymous quite inaccurate.




In fact I think the BL team have gone to excellent lengths to capture the modder and the recognition for them.  Colour coding the mods is excellent, far more than what is asked.




When I go to my houses or trade bar I know that anything with a particular coloured border belongs to X modder ( <a contenteditable="false" data-ipshover="" data-ipshover-target="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/3183-ketchup/&do=hovercard" data-mentionid="3183" href="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/3183-ketchup/">@Ketchup</a> is red; <a contenteditable="false" data-ipshover="" data-ipshover-target="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/5782-kid1293/&do=hovercard" data-mentionid="5782" href="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/5782-kid1293/">@kid1293</a> is green; <a contenteditable="false" data-ipshover="" data-ipshover-target="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/6338-discrepancy/&do=hovercard" data-mentionid="6338" href="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/6338-discrepancy/">@Discrepancy</a> is purple etc etc).

I can look up the internal reference, and I can save-as the image in the <abbr title="MegaMod">MM</abbr> description page.  At no time have I ever felt the modders are anonymous.




--




I have often asked for the ability for the mods to be dual listed, essentially houses/house & themes/houses or in this case modders/house and one day a game may even allow a 'search' function where we type 'house' and up pops all the house no matter where they are listed (not happening in Banished, I know).  

I think though with these new toolbars this sort of compromise can be made.  In fact, it already has been made, with the colouring coding and the groupings that have been coded into <abbr title="MegaMod">MM</abbr> & <abbr title="Colonial Charter">CC</abbr>.  The Houses & the Trade toolbars are an excellent example of this.




<abbr title="MegaMod">Moving forward as an idea, MM</abbr> / <abbr title="Colonial Charter">CC</abbr> is released with either function (houses, roads, etc) in their own listings, and then the modders have their toolbar where their mods & toolbar layout exists, it's all compatible with each other, in fact most modders now produce their mods either with <abbr title="Colonial Charter">CC</abbr> in mind, or at the very least compatible, so that this new toolbar option doesn't have to be an issue.  You may have a few mods listed twice, and certainly their components will be, but if it's done correctly I doubt it will be confusing, nor will it lead to complications, if the structure is framed at the start.  




Currently how I play it is using the function that <abbr title="MegaMod">MM</abbr>/<abbr title="Colonial Charter">CC</abbr> gives me, where I can look for houses in houses, roads in roads, wood & lumber in their own sub-menu (that little mining & forestry sub-menu is a life saver when starting out), but then I get to diversify with my modders and use their mods, some are listed by theme ( <a contenteditable="false" data-ipshover="" data-ipshover-target="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/5518-necora/&do=hovercard" data-mentionid="5518" href="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/5518-necora/">@Necora</a>) and others function <a contenteditable="false" data-ipshover="" data-ipshover-target="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/3183-ketchup/&do=hovercard" data-mentionid="3183" href="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/3183-ketchup/">@Ketchup</a> etc ...  for me, that's a win/win.




I really don't like the idea that players are feeling that modders are becoming invisible in <abbr title="MegaMod">MM</abbr> because I can say with certainty that is not the case, take a close look at the toolbars and you'll see what I mean.




I still vote "other", where the toolbar is sorted by function and theme (ie docks, castles etc), and function where 1 off pieces are together (roads, bridges (that are not with docks), the forestry & luxuries etc) AND the ability to have the modders toolbar without conflicts.


I know, best of both worlds may not be the best for Banished, and I accept that.




Cheers.




 




re the one off mods question.  I asked politely 1 modder if they could release all their current mods into 1 toolbar for me, and I have it, I was thrilled, then of course came the modders toolbar .. [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/smile.png[/img]/emoticons/smile@2x.png 2x" title=":)" width="20" />  But, yes, I agree, there are some where I think 1 off could be packaged into a collection by function, over time, as more are release.  The Woodpersons Pack:  Wood buildings, 1 off bakery, butcher, mill etc; or the Foresters Outpost...  

Just like <a contenteditable="false" data-ipshover="" data-ipshover-target="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/5782-kid1293/&do=hovercard" data-mentionid="5782" href="<___base_url___>/index.php?/profile/5782-kid1293/">@kid1293</a> did his awesome Workplace Package, and subsequent "bits n pieces" mod.  Great ideas [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/biggrin.png[/img]/emoticons/biggrin@2x.png 2x" title=":D" width="20" />