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Making mods platform-independent

KenyonKenyon Member Posts: 142
edited August 2012 in General Modding
Is there a possibility with the new BG:EE code to make mods platform independent? I have a Mac, and unfortunately a lot of mods (especially Pocketplane mods) aren't available to me or are outdated versions. Platform independent mods would solve this problem.

Comments

  • jcomptonjcompton Member Posts: 157
    Mods really are quite cross-platform as it is*, short of some really wholesale changes that I'd put in the "Really Not Beamhaul's Problem" camp there's nothing they can do to make it better. The core of WeiDU's capability is 100% cross-platform between Windows, Mac, and Linux, it's the corner cases like "dealing with compressed audio" and "dealing with compressed tilesets" which require more care.

    The relative lack of Mac support at PPG isn't because I don't like Macs, but because we've just never had anybody available to help us on a really consistent basis who can help us with Mac-oriented packaging. That's probably at least 50% my fault for not trying harder to cultivate that help, or to talk to people at G3 who can tell me "no, really, I assure you if you do X, Y, and Z then everything will work." I don't like posting mods that I don't feel have a reasonably good chance of actually working!

    I suspect that the OSX re-release will bring more Mac players back into the fold, which in turn will probably make it easier for me to find someone who can help us keep Mac packaging up to date.

    * - iOS and Android pose a different set of challenges but we will blow up that bridge when we come to it.
  • KenyonKenyon Member Posts: 142
    @jcompton Thank you, that was exactly what I wanted to hear. Pocketplane has all kinds of wonderful mods (especially for BG2) and I'd be sad if I had to miss them. :)
  • jcomptonjcompton Member Posts: 157
    Actually, I take that back--there *is* something they could do. Native support for ogg vorbis/MP3 audio playback would save a step (the only "platform-dependent" step in 90%+ of mods) and is, uh, certainly not unprecedented among modern video game engines.

    (Modders typically use compressed audio to reduce download size, although that began when there was still an appreciable percentage of players on dialup.)
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