Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

Awesome Gratuitous space battles mod

cliffski

Check this out, it’s just great :D It’s a big, heavy duty mod for GSB:

The full forum thread for the mod is here:

http://positech.co.uk/forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&p=48689#p48671

basically it adds BIGGER ships (dreadnoughts) to the game, which is awesome, and something that any hardcore GSB player should probably take the time to check out. I love this sort of stuff happening to the game, especially now that I’m 100% in next game mode, and don’t have time to tweak GSB or add anything new right now. It is effectively new, fresh and free content for newcomers to the game, and all done by GSB players without any input from me.

It does seem that modding is less widespread than it used to be. Maybe big budget PC games are too hard to mod now, or maybe the developers and less supportive? who knows. It certainly reminds me that I need to ensure I make time to make my next game just as moddable as GSB is.

Possibly no work can get done this thursday / friday. My home office is getting a much-needed new roof, and I will be laptop bound for that time. I hope it doesn’t rain when the roof is half-off :(

 

5 thoughts on Awesome Gratuitous space battles mod

  1. I love it when you have purchased a game that has a talented community behind it. Reason is, they can create some rather amazing extra content that you get to use for FREE which enhances, extends or totaly converts your orriginal purchase. (In this case i now have 4 HUGE new ships to destroy all that oppose me)

  3. I have to say most strategy game I’ve played were modable to some extent. It might be a game genre thing or something.
    Although I might have a biased perspective since I tend to play only games that are modable… umm oh well.

    Anyway, I do think modability is one of the most important aspect of a game, it give replay value like nothing else :)

  4. This is what makes the Bethedsa games so enduring. While the games on their own are outstanding games, its the modding community that really gives it legs, long after the game should be old and stale, there are always new mods coming up.

    Granted for Bethedsa games half of the mods appear to be mods involving boobs…

    But some of the mods introduce whole new gameplay mechanics and are extremely well polished, meaning that so long as the modding community is alive and vibrant the game will never get old and stale.

    Definitely going to give out these battlecruisers a try. Even more stuff to blow up gratuitously! :D

  5. Thank you for the blog and tweet exposure, Cliff. What’s being posted in-thread on the Gratuitous Modding forum is very beneficial both both of us.

    Not only is there a huge wave of enthusiastic “thank you”‘s being posted in-thread, but I’m starting to see folks clearly saying that my mod’s new content has gotten them back into playing GSB after a hiatus. My own understandable ego aside, this can’t help but be good for the game.

    * It adds value to the player’s investment (money as well as time) in the game

    * It stirs the metaphorical pot and focuses attention onto Positech’s justly-famous creation

    * The buzz from the previous point helps to keep Positech in the gamers’ awareness

    * It means that Cliff doesn’t have to steal time away from his next project to create completely new content for an old one

    * It helps keep the most active & forum-posting hardcore players and modders energized and challenged to raise the bar further… adding even _more_ new goodies for players to use; missions to play; entirely new mod races to experience

    To revisit Cliff’s original post, the relative ease and scope of GSb’s moddability was absolutely the #1 aspect that sold the game to me. The sweet “space opera-style combat” was a close second place, but the modding possibilities came first.

    Making 110% certain that the next Positech creation is even _more_ moddable than GSB – not just in modding scope, but also in modding ease-of-use – should be a high priority for attracting buyers. Modding, while not universal, has still long since ceased to be an obscure niche aspect of a serious game. When it comes time for a player to choose whether to buy or to walk, sometimes that functionality _heavily_ outweighs even the core content or time / place /setting of the game universe. This should be clearly kept in mind.

    Oh, and Eric — enjoy my dreadnoughts. ;-)

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