Frontier, please reconsider your stance on modding.

[Howqualepis]

As I said above, part of the "no mod" policy is to try to keep all platforms equal.

Glaring example is vanilla Fallout: New Vegas on PC. Poor consoles couldn't handle the open Vegas strip so they had to add some ugly and pointless partitions to divide it into three sections, each with a loading delay when moving from sector to sector. Naturally this was one of the first aspects that PC modders on Nexus addressed so now I can see everything from the Freeside gate to Michael Angelo's Workshop with no issues and walk the strip from end-to-end with no delays.

I'm guessing the disappointingly small build areas on Islas Nublar and Sorna are an identical concession. Even a partial lifting of a mod-embargo (keeping models and soundtrack under an asset lock to protect Universal's intellectual property ) would at least allow PC-gamers to address one of the most repeated complaints by expanding the play area. Apparently someone on the Steam forums has already done this in a crude manner.

 

[Primitive]

Apparently someone on the Steam forums has already done this in a crude manner.

Link?

 

[Howqualepis]

I cannot confirm the veracity of these claims so be warned = ( https://steamcommunity.com/app/648350/discussions/1/1696050144470227628/ ) =

TallBear on 14 Jun =
"I've completely expanded the maps on all my islands and set the "park boundry" to be the ocean water.

There's a few drawbacks... The game "breaks" after about 120-150 dinos.. well not breaks, but it gets to the point where they are all non stop dying of old age. So to make a park HUGE, it would have to have no more than 100-120

The simulation starts to LAG.. it wasn't made to handle a massive park on an entire island.. even on my machine, once i make a park about 3Xs bigger than intended, my FPS is slashed in 1/2

Keep in mind expanding any map other than the SB island completely unbalances those islands as it makes them "easy" so the challenge will be next to none

Once I write a progam to mod the island files, it will be at your OWN risk to mod them

Now as far as "the legalness" of some modds. If I uploaded my island files, that really could be a violation . so I'll have to write a program to do it..

As long as :

1) You aren't tampering with the exe file
2) You are using a program to mod the games data files

then you are 100% in the legal clear

Edit: I tried removing the boundry COMPLETELY and tried to build on the ocean.. and THAT crashed the game.. so I left the boundries set to the ocean water. Now I just need a couple weeks to code a windows app to mod them"

Additional =
There's a few other issues.. not ALL of the space on the islands can be "smoothed" .. like you can't edit out the rivers the devs put in and a few othings things you simply can build or use the map mod tools... but you can still get a LOT more space out of them

and there's nothing to really help island 4 which is TINY.. LOL

 

[Primitive]

Added him on Steam to request screenshots. The only thing that leaves me skeptical is the fact that he says dinosaurs die nonstop at 100-120 meanwhile BestinSlot goes up to 600 and it doesn't seem like a problem.

 

[PCMR4Life]

If the playerbase's average playtime is <60 hours, it is because of the game, not the player base. What, do you think this is a game that attracted speedrunners and the 60,000 people who purchased it on PC are holding some collective race to finish the game first?? Do you see how ridiculous that sounds?!

Are you seriously complaining about getting less than 60 hours of gameplay out of a game when at the most in any other game you are lucky to get maybe 8-10 hours out of any other single player game? I will repeat what I said in another post. If people are hammering their way through the game by playing 5+ hours a day for several days straight in row or using exploits to make the game easier than that is not Frontiers fault, that is their fault. It also isn't Frontiers fault if they lack the creativity and imagination to play around with the tools they have provided the players with and entertain themselves. These are all the faults of the players. I could see if the game was short, which it isn't. BestInSlot played the game for 30+ hours and that is pretty lengthy these days when your average triple A single player game will be anywhere from 8-10 hours, if you are lucky it might be 12.


I have 52 hours in the game is my fault that I am enjoying it and playing around with the tools Frontier gave me?

 

[Primitive]

Other AAA singleplayer titles are story-based games, not park management games. You shouldn't expect equal time spent completing either. These management tycoons are meant to have heavy replayability and compared to other games of the genre, JWE really doesn't.

 

[PCMR4Life]

Other AAA singleplayer titles are story-based games, not park management games. You shouldn't expect equal time spent completing either. These management tycoons are meant to have heavy replayability and compared to other games of the genre, JWE really doesn't.

The lack of replay value depends on the person and their lack of creativity and imagination. There are plenty of examples of people who have completed the main campaign, have everything unlocked and are still playing the game. People here and on the JWE sub reddit.

 

[PCMR4Life]

I cannot confirm the veracity of these claims so be warned = ( https://steamcommunity.com/app/648350/discussions/1/1696050144470227628/ ) =

TallBear on 14 Jun =
"I've completely expanded the maps on all my islands and set the "park boundry" to be the ocean water.

There's a few drawbacks... The game "breaks" after about 120-150 dinos.. well not breaks, but it gets to the point where they are all non stop dying of old age. So to make a park HUGE, it would have to have no more than 100-120

The simulation starts to LAG.. it wasn't made to handle a massive park on an entire island.. even on my machine, once i make a park about 3Xs bigger than intended, my FPS is slashed in 1/2

Keep in mind expanding any map other than the SB island completely unbalances those islands as it makes them "easy" so the challenge will be next to none

Once I write a progam to mod the island files, it will be at your OWN risk to mod them

Now as far as "the legalness" of some modds. If I uploaded my island files, that really could be a violation . so I'll have to write a program to do it..

As long as :

1) You aren't tampering with the exe file
2) You are using a program to mod the games data files

then you are 100% in the legal clear

Edit: I tried removing the boundry COMPLETELY and tried to build on the ocean.. and THAT crashed the game.. so I left the boundries set to the ocean water. Now I just need a couple weeks to code a windows app to mod them"

Additional =
There's a few other issues.. not ALL of the space on the islands can be "smoothed" .. like you can't edit out the rivers the devs put in and a few othings things you simply can build or use the map mod tools... but you can still get a LOT more space out of them

and there's nothing to really help island 4 which is TINY.. LOL

I have said this for a while now. The islands can not be made larger cause consoles can't handle it. I don't know what this guys PC specs are but if his PC can't handle larger islands than it would bring a console to it's knees. I said the same thing about the herding, Consoles can't handle that many animals on screen all at once.

 

[Spinomonkey]

While I fully support a modding community I also don’t find it likely due to licensing reasons.

Unfortunately for them, I doubt Frontier hasn’t internally already fought this battle and lost. Because as it has been noted: a modding community encourages growth of their product especially when it can be managed and supported in such a way that the modding community can be guided. Look at city skylines or even Kerbal Space Program for example.

But regardless, I don’t think we’re likely to see a public shift in their stance.

 

[JackoSweets]

Mods are great if you know how to use them. Most games I'm playing on PC I'm playing with mods or bought because I knew i could get mods for them. Adds tonnes of replay value and customization/ tweaking. But I'm just restating what lots of other people already know and have said.

Unfortunately I doubt it'll be allowed 'cos Universal. I'm not a modder so I don't exactly know how they work but I imagine people will still find ways to mod the game but they won't be available through the Steam workshop; you'll have to go to a 3rd party mod site or whatever which I hope happens. I could be wrong though.

JW:E is a fun game in small doses with lots of room for additions which I'm sure will come in a few months. The game still has lots of untapped potential either through Frontier or mods.

 

[okxt2jzdjsrz]

I'm not a modder so I don't exactly know how they work but I imagine people will still find ways to mod the game but they won't be available through the Steam workshop; you'll have to go to a 3rd party mod site or whatever which I hope happens. I could be wrong though.

They're usually done by editing xml and python files (I don't have the PC version (because it's Steam and I refuse to have anything to do with Steam) so I'm just guessing this game mods work the same way). Modders can just edit their own games; publishing them isn't necessary.

 

[Fhloston Paradise]

Added him on Steam to request screenshots. The only thing that leaves me skeptical is the fact that he says dinosaurs die nonstop at 100-120 meanwhile BestinSlot goes up to 600 and it doesn't seem like a problem.

Death waves are a significant problem at 120 Dinosaur and more. Essentially the more dinosaurs you create the higher the frequency and instances of animal deaths. I shudder to think of 600 dinosaurs on an island, the guys life must be essentially centered on continual animal breeding due to the really short animal lifespans.

 

[Primitive]

I have said this for a while now. The islands can not be made larger cause consoles can't handle it. I don't know what this guys PC specs are but if his PC can't handle larger islands than it would bring a console to it's knees. I said the same thing about the herding, Consoles can't handle that many animals on screen all at once.

Plenty of the islands can be made larger so long as they are still smaller or equal in size to the largest map ingame. It's not about performance so much as it is design choice.

Death waves are a significant problem at 120 Dinosaur and more. Essentially the more dinosaurs you create the higher the frequency and instances of animal deaths. I shudder to think of 600 dinosaurs on an island, the guys life must be essentially centered on continual animal breeding due to the really short animal lifespans.

I've never attempted creating that many dinosaurs so I can't really speak from experience. TallBear (the user who supposedly modded his game) still hasn't accepted my friend request so I'm not sure if we can ever verify his claims on modding the game.

 

[Primitive]

The results of the Google Survey are here. 99 users from either the JWE forums or JWE subreddit responded and average playtime between this group is 58 hours.