Hello everyone!
What a huge week that's ending too quickly, perhaps too quickly? I would have liked to make more progress, but I had to take a day off to handle some personal matters, so I still have plenty on my plate!
[h3]Weekly Recap[/h3]
The mod management system has been overhauled, at last! Now when you load a mod and start a new game, the game will automatically rate the mod. This way, you'll know if a mod is excellent and enhances your gaming experience. Or if a mod is good but might affect your gameplay experience. And the third rating, the lowest one, will warn you that this mod will likely harm your gaming experience.
On top of that, there are tooltips that will tell you what the mod changes. For instance, if it simply renames things - in which case, your gaming experience will only be better. Or if it adds new features, which may or may not improve your gameplay.
Basically, the algorithm is based on standard values. The more a mod deviates from these values, the lower its rating will be. So a mod that hands out tons of fans, for example, will get a poor rating, while a mod that adds elements to game engines will receive a good rating.
And for mod creators, it's really great because once you've created your mod and the game has validated it, it automatically gives you the mod's score. Super convenient, but there are still a few things missing on this front.
[h3]What's Next[/h3]
So I've made great progress on mod management, but as I was saying, for mod creators there's still something important missing. When you create a mod, it would be nice to know why it got a poor rating. At the moment, the game doesn't tell you this, but I plan to add it in the next RC. This way, you'll immediately know how to improve your mod to make it flawless. And in the long run, everyone will be happy.
Well... I didn't have time to finish this part about mods, so I couldn't work on human resources or anything else for that matter. But I'm planning to tackle this part during the coming week. And if I can give you more details, I also plan to revamp the automatic devkit sending feature, so you won't need to send them manually anymore, but with just one button click. Another minor but important change is the right panel that stays on the panel you've opened by default unless there's important information to show you.
Alright, I've still got work to do. I wish you all a fantastic, sunny weekend.
Xavier aka Binogure
