For those interested, I saw that DCS posted a whole lot of terrain tool videos on YouTube (make sure to select the ones marked ENG and not RU)

https://www.youtube.com/user/eagledynamicstv/videos

Thanks for sharing.

Will this tools be made available to the general public?

/KC

According to Sithspawn in the ED forums...



http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2367738&postcount=1347

But remember folks, ED fully supports modding.

If they didnt they would have nuked all these half baked mods that use other planes cockpits along time ago,

There's a reason to apply and prove you're qualified to get the tools.

If you believe you can make terrains no one is stopping you from applying.

those half backed mods were so much fun - that is why so many people downloaded them : the Viggen, Gripen were specially good, and the F-18 mods really showed that people had a lot of good ideas, but to me, the most interesting of those "half baked mods" were the AdA mods, since I really love the Mirage F-1C.



include me out.

That's a good point , I mean DCS has been around how long now and there are tons of new terrains. Oh wait, no there isn't.

Making people jump thru artificial hoops to get tools IS NOT SUPPORTING MODDING.

BTW, what is the exact reason to make people PROVE they can make terrains.

What is the 'harm' in giving these tools to people who will never be able to make anything.

What's the official reason then Skate?

Surely the community are the people that ultimately determine if a mod is good or not based on the number of downloads and how the community rates it? That shouldn't be determined by the developer if they 'fully support' modding......because that isn't the definition of being fully supportive at all. It's a very selective method of deciding who can and can't have the tools in the first place.

Based on ED's history of making decisions and communicating them to their customers, I don't think ED should be involved with the decision making process of someone else's ability. They either fully support modding or they don't regardless of who is making the attempt.

it is an interesting question - that requirement instantly put me off.

it feels like you are applying to a job when all we would like to do is have some fun with the tools.

what if I don´t want to release anything and keep all the work to myself ?

this particular developer seems to have some difficulty interacting with its consumers.

So how do you know if you can make a terrain/map if you can't use the tools? You cant try the tools out and you cant get the tools with out jumping through the hoops ED puts in your way. So that leaves everyone in a sort of limbo/catch 22 situation.

I would like to have a go and make a terrain, but to me it sounds like I have to sign an agreement with ED in order to get the tools which instantly makes this a no-go for me.

I think lots of people could and would try the map tools and maybe some of the maps would be up to DCS standard. Look at ARMA for an example of a good map making community There are some fantastic maps available for it all made by community members.
I would like to see the tools available to the greater community not to some "assumed" master race of map builders.

I bet we would have a lot more areas to fly over right now if these tools were released from the get go.

I just cannot see any logical reason for keeping these tools so close to their chest.

SD

I don't work for ED but I stayed at a Holiday Express once...

The reason some companies restrict modding to groups who have to 'show some work' is to protect the image of the product in the customers eyes; to protect the perception of quality.

Yes. I can hear you. Those dry eye rolls and snickers as you stare not-wordlessly into your half empty cups.

If ED released the modding tools to everyone (ie: free beer download) the risk is that they would get a large group of sub-par, mediocre or plain out-right-terrible mods. A bunch of drunken amateurs puking over everyone who is trying to make a decent mod.

How much do you want to wade through the file downloads section full of real crap to find the few, the very few good drunks?

The truth is that this is not a product at a state where the good mods provide enough signal-to-potential-noise to promote the business and the community. The risk is that the bad mods further degrade the pool of potential customers and the community. Instead, the gatekeeper (ie: ED) holds the door lightly closed in the hopes of protecting the product and customer base while letting people who show a little initiative and good sense expand the product in a controlled manner.

It's the price we have to pay for a genre that is as niche as ours. Yes, you could argue that but the fact remains that the pool of customers for a serious, high-learning-curve flight sim is much smaller than most, if not all, other game types.

I had/have a great idea I would like to try out in DCS. It's a very cool addon that would provide CSAR to a multi-player environment with drag-and-drop simplicity. I need one little hint and a little bit of elbow grease from someone that knows how to make a mod (not a graphic or unit substitution, not a new aircraft) but I can not attract the notice of the right person in the modding community or at ED (granted I don't know what channel to use to get into the ED world).

With my day job coding and my nights Witcher-ing, virtually flying (pun intended) or moving my pack full of ammunition and medical supplies to the front line, I do not really have much free time to put into getting of my arse and moving my mod idea along.

I am not complaining in those last two paragraphs. I am just pointing out the other side of the risk ED assumes when they restrict modding in this way.

Eagle Dynamics, through their choice to restrict the availability of mod tools, are providing a barrier of entry that helps protect the (potential) quality of the mods while slowing down the growth of modding in their community.

And honestly, from what I understand of discussions a few years ago, getting access to the tools is not _that_ hard. You just have to know the gatekeeper and the proper handshake - which is _a_ handshake, by the way, and not a punch in the face.

Public Service Announcement: This is my view and my view only - at least I have not found many people who admit to sharing my views. I have been known to be wrong ... often.

The Arma series has proven this mentality as a myth...

also FSX

also GTA series..

the list goes on an on..

I read your post Fridge, it is an interesting perspective.

but that is not the reason -> IMO <- : it has much more to do with an ingrained patronizing attitude on the part of this particular developer.



true.

compare the relative size of the communities that follow each product.

I can only repeat what has been already stated; Arma in particular has disproved what you wrote Fridge. The majority of mods released range from somewhat below average to utter rubbish to be brutally honest, but that hasn't been a problem. Very few servers and groups actually end up using but the best mods. After what, more than 10 years of the Black Sea, anything would be a better terrain at this rate, even if it's just a vast desert. At least then the A-10 and F-15 could be played in somewhat immersive maps.

Just small mods to remove modern stuff from airfields on the current map would be great as well; I can't express how disappointed I was yesterday when I played around with a cold start MiG-15 and B-29 winter intercept mission, when the immersion I'd managed to scrap together with the help of Voice Attack, a Superfortress and a nice weather setting was utterly ruined by just looking behind me and seeing BTR-80s and Mi-8s.

I dont have a reason, but its likely a QA/C reason of some type amongst others.

Not to mention the NDAs that go along with gaining access to aspects of the software/sim not publicly availible.

Building a new terrain from scratch is not a simple task. (its a significant amount of work involved).
Then again niether is importing models, and making new modules.

Would I like to see more open tools? Sure.
but its not my decision, nor my place to challenge that decision.

I'd rather have quality terrains, (free or pdlc), than to have to scan through dozens of half baked or stolen terrains to find one of decent quality.

Everytime I see an Ripped FSX model in posted DCS screenshots I get furious; as I understand it, this was way more common in FC2 mods. (Going by what studios and 3D Artists that do work for FSX have said, not so much now, but its still an issue, and I take ripped IP very seriously).

I don't have much experience with flight sim modding - more with race sim mods and indeed, in the latter case, for every high quality mod, there's always a $hit-ton of mediocre or plain bad ones. However, despite similar, very niche market, these mods extend the lifetime of a product nicely. Damn, I still play heavily modded Grand Prix Legends, even though it's 17 years old now (and still has a community expanding it).

I interpret ED's announcement a bit different, though. From what I read at the ED forum, I gather the map-making will not fall under modding as some understand it, but rather contracting 3rd parties to make a new map as a paid addon, or a free addon to paid aircraft module (as Leatherneck plan to do as a side-project for the Tomcat). Nothing is cast in stone, though, so we'll see how it goes.

Best Line Ever!

I wouldn't be so quick to tout BI as some sort of benevolent giant that gives the community all it desires. BI has two children companies that actually make the games : BI Studios, and BI Sims. Studios makes Arma, Sims makes VBS (As the The Battle Sim is to DCS, VBS is to Arma).

If you're bored, go to youtube and look up example videos for Visitor, the Real Virtuality engine mapping program, for both games. The Arma one is to put it kindly, Byzantine and outdated (though very capable). The VBS variant has multiple videos demonstrating the ability to make a map, populate it with buildings and roads, and get a scenario running on it in less than an hour. That's a point of no small contention in the community. BI steadfastly refuses to release it, and a number of other VBS features to the Arma community, and their reasoning is sound. If you make a near VBS caliber sim available at Arma pricing (less than VBS costs, and without contracts), people aren't going to pay for VBS, and the customers who financed those features for VBS are going to be livid. It sucks, and it's caused no small bit of contention in the Arma community, but it's also not going to change.

I don't know how many parallels there are between the two companies, I don't really feel like speculating. I will say however that while I love BI to death, they're not above holding back the "good stuff" for their commercial partners either.

I would assume the pricing is up to the developer.

I am just trying to give you a different perspective. Arma3 does not prove ED wrong. FSX does not prove ED wrong. The pool of players is very different and much larger.

size_of_pool(Arma3) > size_of_pool (DCS) && size_of_pool(FSX) > size_of_pool (DCS)

GTA series? Really? You are loosing a ton of creditability by comparing the population base of DCS versus GTA. If DCS had a population size approaching even half that of GTA none of this would be the way it is.

But this is not a size/population contest.

I would argue that making something work in DCS is an order of magnitude more complex than Arma3 - and very different. Yes, there are maybe modders making complex systems for Arma3 but none of them are dealing with a real-world analog flight model. I would also make that argument against FSX which uses tables to determine flight characteristics - granted a lot of FSX modders/developers have added a ton of complexity within that system.

But none of that matters. Both Arma3 and FSX have had a strong, large modding community establish from well before DCS was a thing. ED has made a different choice for different reasons.

But this is not a complexity contest either.

I am arguing that ED made a choice based on quality control. That has it's risks and rewards.

Honestly, how many of us here have actually tried to get in contact with ED to see what the terms are?

We are all too lazy to even see what ED has for 'restrictive' controls over it's tools. Myself included. We are arguing over something that none of us have actually put a foot forward to accomplish. Myself included.