Why Modmerge's existence sucks
Stoltverd
Member Posts: 19
First... Don't get me wrong.
Modmerge is a great tool and @ScottBrooks a god.
However...
Why was it needed in the first place?
Why haven't beamdog made an oficial statement? This is needed. let me tell you why:
I feel this was intentional from beamdog to boost sales from their site and get 100% earnings.
I've been feeling beamdog is pushing me to rebuy from their site since preorder for SoD was opened...
When preorders were announced i intended to buy them on day one to support the devs (I NEVER preorder). I assumed steam to be an option (i can only buy trough steam because of my local currency and exchange rates).
When I found myself mistaken I felt bad and like beamdog was telling me i had to buy it from them if i wanted to support them (hell... It even said something along the lines of "Want to support the devs? Buy directly from us") however I said to myself "Ok, ill buy it on day one". Not because I intended to play it on day one, but to give my support (I'm intending to wait until BGEET is released for my first run).
Then I learn that mod would be almost impossible with steam and GOG versions... but with beamdog's? No biggie...
But then again i told myself that it didn't matter, surely soon there would be an announcement or a silent patch fixing that mistake... "it was a mistake surely"... HA... Innocent, idiotic me.
But what did we get? radio silence... And then we got Modmerge, an unofficial tool, with no warranties, that will make modding cumbersome. (But at least possible).
AND AS AN ANNOUNCEMENT IN THE FORUMS!!!!
This at least to me, tells that beamdog seems that the issue is resolved... That there are no plans to fix the issue. And since the tool is unofficial, they can wash their hands.
So what would i have to do to be able to play BGEET when released? Rebuy EVERY BGEE game but FROM BEAMDOG. At HUGE exchange rates.
Maybe it's the anger but i really feel like this was intentional from beamdog... The silence, the release of the tool categorized as an announcement in the forums, the beamdog preorder exclusive, the "support the devs" line in beamdog's website... It's all fishy to me. And that is why i want an official statement on the issue.
After all... Modding is what kept this game alive all this years.
You all have a great evening.
Modmerge is a great tool and @ScottBrooks a god.
However...
Why was it needed in the first place?
Why haven't beamdog made an oficial statement? This is needed. let me tell you why:
I feel this was intentional from beamdog to boost sales from their site and get 100% earnings.
I've been feeling beamdog is pushing me to rebuy from their site since preorder for SoD was opened...
When preorders were announced i intended to buy them on day one to support the devs (I NEVER preorder). I assumed steam to be an option (i can only buy trough steam because of my local currency and exchange rates).
When I found myself mistaken I felt bad and like beamdog was telling me i had to buy it from them if i wanted to support them (hell... It even said something along the lines of "Want to support the devs? Buy directly from us") however I said to myself "Ok, ill buy it on day one". Not because I intended to play it on day one, but to give my support (I'm intending to wait until BGEET is released for my first run).
Then I learn that mod would be almost impossible with steam and GOG versions... but with beamdog's? No biggie...
But then again i told myself that it didn't matter, surely soon there would be an announcement or a silent patch fixing that mistake... "it was a mistake surely"... HA... Innocent, idiotic me.
But what did we get? radio silence... And then we got Modmerge, an unofficial tool, with no warranties, that will make modding cumbersome. (But at least possible).
AND AS AN ANNOUNCEMENT IN THE FORUMS!!!!
This at least to me, tells that beamdog seems that the issue is resolved... That there are no plans to fix the issue. And since the tool is unofficial, they can wash their hands.
So what would i have to do to be able to play BGEET when released? Rebuy EVERY BGEE game but FROM BEAMDOG. At HUGE exchange rates.
Maybe it's the anger but i really feel like this was intentional from beamdog... The silence, the release of the tool categorized as an announcement in the forums, the beamdog preorder exclusive, the "support the devs" line in beamdog's website... It's all fishy to me. And that is why i want an official statement on the issue.
After all... Modding is what kept this game alive all this years.
You all have a great evening.
1
Comments
You didn't understand me. I havent started the playtrough, but i do own all the games.
What's more... Steam don't tell devs how to bundle or code their software. They can even say "fuck it" to steam api and tell the buyers to deactivate steam overlay so it won't crash.
I have 880+ games and dlc in steam. 50+ in GOG. NOT ONE have the DLC packaged in a zip file...
Edit: Also for your information. Releases are automated, prices set by the developers with NO intervention from valve, and the store page is done wholy by the devs.
Thats why the "Infestation: Survivor Stories" fiasco came to be, that's why there are so many greenlight crap and thats how this exploit could be achieved: https://medium.com/swlh/watch-paint-dry-how-i-got-a-game-on-the-steam-store-without-anyone-from-valve-ever-looking-at-it-2e476858c753
Edit2: Also... There is no way the program can read directly into a zip... it have to uncompress it first or use other methods. Meaning SoD was coded to work with a Zip. meaning the code for GOG and Steam versions are different.
It is alao not the first time modding was broke/difficult for a while. When they moved dialog.tlk it was the same for a time.
It is likely that someone will find a way to bindle the modmerger with Weidu in the future, but there was no reason to create hurdles like this.
I'm not sure that this thread belongs in the modding forum.
@subtledoctor You are right of course. My interior tinfoil hat guy says that he had to do it before a huge community backlash. But reason says you are right hahaha.
It's still very strange... As i said earlier, the program has to unpack the zip. Steam api can't do that. meaning the source code has to be different. Maybe one or more entire classes different. that's what huge game does. Bethesda has it's BSA files for example. Loading screens are there to let you look at something while the games unpacks the content, reads it and stores it in the memory.
Would that mean there are 3 teams of coders? Three different source codes (not very likely but a possibility. Personally i believe the theory that there are just 3 different classes in the source)? If there are just different classes to access the data... Wouldn't that mean that GOG and Steam versions may have bugs the beamdog version have not?
Edit: Also no... You can't turn that on or off in steam. That would mean to have 2 versions of the game. one that can read the compressed file (more like uncompress, read, store and compress) and one that doesn't.
More than that... They couldn't list HDD requeriments since the storage space would change.
You CAN uninstall DLC trough checkboxes. But that doesn't have anything to do with the issue at hand.
I buy a new BMW from my local dealership and then notice the gas tank only holds a gallon. Now I ask BMW what the heck is up with that and they tell me “Sorry, your local dealership only sells cars with 1-gallon tanks. You should have known your local dealership always does it that way.” I'll surely be pissed at my local dealership but I have every right to be just as pissed at BMW for a) going along with it and enabling my local dealership to sell their product in a clearly inferior way b) choosing to not inform me, their customer, about it and c) not offering me a solution or apology for this whole mess.
What I'm trying to say is; while Steam/GoG might not be innocent about the whole issue their involvement sure as hell does not exonerate Beamdog who knew about it and most likely provided the code for its implementation.
Sorry but this can no longer be seen as a simple oversight.
For this to be a simple oversight Beamdog would have had to issue an official statement and an apology after the issue had been pointed out to them. The modmerge tool would also have had to be build on company time and be released as an official tool.
None of those things happened.
Instead Beamdog (the company) chose to just ignore the issue. (That a single developer cared and came up with a fix for the issue on his free time is great but it does NOT redeem the company.)
So at this point the whole DLC fiasco is no longer an oversight, even if it may have been one in the beginning. It is a clear and loud statement from Beamdog towards the modding community that says: “We don't give a shit about you.”.
Well, there is some harm.
While modmerge or K4thos' weidumod that does the same thing will enable modding with Steam/GoG versions it means more work for the end-user and probably more work for some of the more sophisicated mods (like EET) as well.
However, the one harmed the most by this is actually Beamdog itself. I'm sure I'm not the only one whose opinion of Beamdog has taken a severe hit from how they handled (or rather, not handled) this situation.
This proves once and for all that it was definitely not an oversight on Beamdogs end. So they failed to inform their customers about this severe difference between the different versions of their game even though they were well aware.
It also proves that Beamdog would have had the option to provide Steam/GoG users with a modable version (albeit at the "cost" of a 4gig download*).
*Which is funny since at least GoG makes you re-download BG1EE and BG2EE for about 3 gig each anyway whenever a new patch is released.
Well, you can't do the same with the GOG version.
I would assume you can do the same with the GoG version too, just need to be nice and understanding when you contact the support really.
As for the rest, I think it is all here in this thread so if you come to a different conclusion with the arguments brought forward I doubt there is much that could be said to change that.
Beamdog's agreement with Wizards of the Coast was to create an expansion for Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. Selling Siege of Dragonspear as a stand-alone product is not an option according to this agreement.
As a result, we had to implement SoD as DLC. The approach taken was the most straightforward approach to support the DLC delivery, install and uninstall methods available on Steam and GoG. This was done by making use of proven code we already had in production for Android. It also facilitates downloadable in-app purchases that will be necessary to deliver SoD on Apple's Mac App Store, iOS App Store and Google Play.
We love mods and modders, and we've put new features into the 2.0 engine to lets modders do things with the game that have never been done before. We understand that the DLC file created a new challenge for our modders, so we invited to modding tool developers into our beta test and gave them access to the development team to help get those tools to support the DLC format. When this proved more difficult than expected, a tool was provided to convert the DLC installations into a more moddable format.
Yeah, I know. Doesn't really go well with the "Mission Impossible" theme, does it?
Thank you for this post, I take it this is an official answer?
If so, this is definitely a step in the right direction.
*turns Mission Impossible theme back on*
A lot of my concerns over this issue are less related to the actual DLC deployment and more to how Beamdog handled this situation communication wise.
Would you not agree that informing your customers before release about the Steam/GoG versions and the difficulties they might cause for modding would have been the right decision?
How can I be sure you just won't break mod-ability completely with your next game release, without giving out any information about that before hand? The way you say that makes it sound as if providing “the tool” (modmerge) was a decision by Beamdog though Scott mentioned that he did that in his spare time?
It is also worth mentioning that this feature could be pretty useful for modders:
The DLC loader supports multiple .zip files. So you could package your own mod (or set of mods) and use the zip to install that package on another computer or mobile device. Including tlk files. (DLC zip files are processed in alpha order, common resources overriding the ones from previous zips) Well, it is Scott's tool, and I didn't meant to detract from that. We were aware of the modding situation, and were thinking about how we could deal with it, but getting our first patch update out was our highest priority. We're grateful that Scott (our CTO and lead programmer) was able to get something to you guys that could get modding back on track like it did.
I'm pretty sure Beamdog as the developer itself would have not been restricted from informing the public about this, unless of course I fundamentally misunderstand how NDAs work for you guys.
I still think this was handled rather badly by Beamdog but I have said that before and brought up all my arguments. You and a lot of people here on the forums seem to disagree with me, so there is probably no need to drag this out any further.
On a positive note, I'm glad that you did address this in the end and shed some light on the situation, so thanks again for that.
As for the .zip loader being useful for other modders, I'm not not a programmer myself or very adept with those things in general, but would not the latest .zip dialogue.tlk overwrite any other versions, thus making the .zip format useless for anyone that wants to use more than one mod?
*edit:* It is not just a molehill. It is an indication for a bad information/communication philosophy at Beamdog and as such it needs to be addressed.
I would rather voice my opinion and critique if I'm not happy with something than to close my eyes and pretend everything is fine until *** hits the fan big time.