LOG 2 announcement

[Grimwold]

I haven't seen any discussion on this here in the modding forum, so thought I'd post about this:

http://www.grimrock.net/2013/02/21/abou ... w-project/

Given the discussions here, particularly in the requests threads and the Petri drinking Glogg and coding sessions, I am hoping that LOG2 will have even more flexibility for us modders.. particularly regarding things that were hardcoded... like monster brains, standard spells etc.

Of course I'm also wondering if our existing LOG1 projects will be compatable_with or portable_to the new game.

Any thoughts?

[Neikun]

I know that if they release an editor for the new game, it should be only a little bit of extra work to convert LoG mods to LoG2.
It's 99% sure that it's still coded in lua.
Layouts will be the easiest thing.
Definitions will need updates.
The hardest part will be the mechanical goings-ons in the game itself through script entities.

It might be possibly that the proprietary model and animations files will change, but if so, likely not drastically.

[Grimfan]

I know that if they release an editor for the new game, it should be only a little bit of extra work to convert LoG mods to LoG2.
It's 99% sure that it's still coded in lua.
Layouts will be the easiest thing.
Definitions will need updates.
The hardest part will be the mechanical goings-ons in the game itself through script entities.

It might be possibly that the proprietary model and animations files will change, but if so, likely not drastically.

How is this going to impact the LotNR project Neikun? Are you guys putting development on hold or going forward regardless?

[Skuggasveinn]

How is this going to impact the LotNR project Neikun? Are you guys putting development on hold or going forward regardless?

Going forward for sure.
Lua scripting can be adapted, models can for sure be reused, sounds can be used, textures can be used, and even if they add something to the materials it can be adapted.

putting something on hold because we don't know whats coming down the line is worse then having to adapt something to a new engine. Besides I'm not going to be staring at the forums for many many months waiting for some news I wan't to be creating something.

Skuggasveinn.

[Neikun]

We're still working on it, though there's a general consensus that we should release a smaller version of the mod in LoG1 that is something like a prequel to the story we're making. We're still discussing it though.

[antti]

We've seen that modding has served Grimrock 1 so well that we definitely want to keep it in mind while we're developing the sequel. We've already done a few things that should greatly improve modding flexibility (not to mention how much easier it makes things for us here at Almost Human as well) but I'll keep my lips sealed about those features for now since there might be a good topic for a blog post right there!

And I can't really comment on how compatible Grimrock 1 mods will be with the sequel exactly since we really don't know the specifics ourselves, but I'd like to remind you that being able to make changes to the game freely is one of the foremost reasons we decided to do a full blown sequel instead of a DLC/expansion. However, I can promise that all the changes we will do to the game that potentially might break compatibility (level format, object and asset definitions, scripting and so on) will be for a good cause.

But yeah, rest assured: we won't forget about modders and I'm sure that modding Grimrock 2 will be even more awesome!

[Grimwold]

Thanks for your comments Antti.

It's completely understandable that you don't want to be shackled by attempting to maintain compatibility... and as Skuggasveinn says, lua scripts can be re-written and assets re-purposed. So even if the dungeon.lua files can't be loaded directly, It ought to be possible to convert them into whatever the new format is... (which maybe someone could write a tool to do just that)

[thomson]

Antti, don't worry about backward compatibility too much. Documenting new formats will be enough.

Some of us from modding community will write converters, if necessary. Sure, some things cannot be converted automatically, but it is still much easier than start from scratch. We've been able to write a converter from the original Eye of the Beholder (reverse engineered large parts of EOB format) to Grimrock. After that, Grimrock 1 to Grimrock 2 conversion will be piece of cake

[pulpum]

some words already sounds magical:

"modding Grimrock 2 will be even more awesome"

yeah

[petri]

Yeah, looking at the crazy things you have already done with mods, I'm having a hard time imagining what you guys can accomplish with the new (censored)