Depends on the game and how the mods work. I just did a bunch of mods on Morrowwind and there was a tool for it and it was straight forward. GTA IV was super straightforward loading the mods I thought. Dolphin game mods I thought where a little funky till I spent a little time with it and was like oh this makes sense they way they are doing it and I was being a dummy not fully reading the instructions
Isn’t GTA IV a bit difficult to mod? I feel like I recall using OpenIV and having to track down the correct directories to install each part of a mod the right way
As the name suggests, a mod is “modifying” the game, in ways that the original creators never intended to support. That’s why out of very few exceptions (such as Paradox and Steam mods), there is not a centralized hub maintained by the creator to organize and apply mods. But since there are some similarities between certain games (such as the game engine they run on), sometimes there is a third party mod launcher/installer which simplifies things. Thunderstore is an example.
The process tends to be different for every game because every game is made differently. To boil the concept down, basically if there’s no official interface for custom functionality (such as a plugin system), then modders will usually “hack” this in themselves. Installing the mod often means replacing a game file with one that hooks into the game, to be able to load custom code and custom game resources.
You’re not missing anything. Heavy modding of older games PC can be a pain in the ass.
You can usually find a somewhat coherent and structured guide that will give you a step by step process, but will still be time-consuming (and there will likely be exceptions or outdated information).
The best option is to keep mods to minimum unless you know what you are doing and it’s a game that you play on a permanent basis.
Heavy modding of older games PC can be a pain in the ass.
Sometimes the older games are the easy ones to mod, and the new games make it intentionally difficult. Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Deus Ex are all mod-friendly.
It can also depend on how much work the mod developer puts into making it easy.
(I notice you have an MiB as your profile pic and Deus Ex’s Liberty Island skybox as your profile banner lol)
I was so confused for so long here. I forgot that Men in Black were in Deus Ex. I was just like “How the hell does Tommy Lee Jones connect with this?!”
If it’s non-standard engine (“sourceport” in Doom terminology) with its own scripting infrastructure (like GZDoom) then sure. Vanilla and Boom compatible engines are kinda tricky, DeHackEd isn’t exactly the easiest modding approach. Mapping-friendly - for sure, but modding - less so.
Can’t say that I’ve ever had this issue. Usually mod authors will tell you where to install them, or package the files in a folder structure such that there is no thinking involved.
Like most things, you’re just “an idiot” until you figure it out. Like any skill, the more you practice the better you get. Just take the time to understand it better and it will start making more sense eventually.
Yeah, I usually just follow the instructions, which seems to work 99% of the time. The main problem is usually if a mod still works with the latest game version.
Most games were never made to be modded. The communities are hacking mods into these games, many of which were even designed to make modding harder. (Because mods compete against sequels or something? I dunno. Intellectual property is a mental illness.) It’s not terribly surprising that games that weren’t meant to be modded have confusingly inconsistent methods for loading mods. Because those mods work fundamentally differently from game to game. If a mod happens to be easy-ish to install, chances are it’s either quite a simple mod (a model/texture replacement or some such, or just something that’s not terribly hard to mod) or a lot of work has been put into making it easier.
It’s more that most games aren’t made with consideration for modding, this means you can have core gameplay elements hidden in encrypted packages and modding is limited by what you can actually get access to. Sometimes the devs/publishers will actively make mods harder though. Really depends on the game, the company, how determined people are to mod it, how long the game’s been out for, the engine and probably a bunch else that I haven’t thought of right now.
Also the timeline usually matters. Mod methods can change as game patches are released. Mods can have mod patches. Mods can be deprecated for new mods or mod methods. Mods can have other dependencies. Install order sometimes matters.
I think OP is right; mods can be messy, complicated, and a lot of work.
About to finish Alan Wake 2 and its DLCs. It’s a great game but for me it’s bit too artsy fartsy. The flow breaks each time you switch the character, which in turn affects the pacing. Having said that the concept is cool, the fmvs integrated into the game are really high quality, they act as emmisive light sources, causing surroundings to reflect it. Pretty cool.
At one point recently I bought a two pack of USB Blu-ray burner drives for $25. Optical media is so dirt cheap now that the readers are BOGO. Gave one to my partner, the other is still serving my physical media needs very well.
Uhh, because I have a working optical drive. Am I in the minority now? Doesn’t get a ton of use but every now and then I have to rip a DVD I own because it’s starting to die.
I have two that are constantly hooked up to my mac! One for ripping and burning CDs and DVDs (which I still do regularly, in fact I ripped five audio CDs just today) and one for ripping/burning 4k/blu-ray. I occasionally use both at the same time to make copies of discs, but my need for that is for part of a hobby project.
Not sure about the minority now, but you will be in a few years if not already. Prebuilt PCs haven’t included optical drives as standard for years now, and good luck buying a new laptop that has one.
Optical media isn’t dead but it’s on life support and will become functionally obsolete in the next decade, same as what happened to magnetic media.
I have one as well in my PC of Theseus, it’s been an ongoing part for more than a decade now. But, I also haven’t used in in a year or more.
It’s kinda funny to think back at how excited I was when my father first installed a CD-ROM drive in our home PC and knowing I could now get some of the newest games which were coming out on PC at that time. And now, I don’t even know if my optical drive is still working.
I got an internal BDXL drive and flashed firmware to make sure I can rip the 4K discs I started getting as part of physical bundles. Still need to start getting NAS drives to be ready for when my main PC stops being my daily driver+Plex Server before I had to get a new TV that could view them (still don’t have a dedicated player and annoyed the PS4 Pro didn’t ship with 4K playback). For now I can at least hook my PC to the TV if I really want to watch a disc.
My pc sonetimes doesn’t start up, i assume the psu is wonky or something stupid like a wonky power button connector. I started to look into it and was shocked when i saw that my pc has a optical drive hidden behind a little hatch. I completely forgot about that. But also shows how much i need it.
Who isn’t keeping multiple vintage pcs? I keep a core2 system with a floppy and disc drives to deal with old media. It even has parralel and serial ports in case I need to deal with old hardware like zip drives. It has internal sata so it can boot from an ssd.
bin.pol.social
Gorące