A quick intro: My introduction to game development was the Editor for Warcraft III and the Age of Empire series. I used Witcher 2’s REDkit throughout my game development program to learn Quest Design and build projects and loudly petitioned for Witcher III to receive modding support with a release of REDkit. I am now assisting with Witcher III’s REDkit prerelease.
Thomas Mahler and Gennadiy Korol have been informative sources on game development for years and loud proponents for the craft. Mahler is a huge supporter of classic handcrafted game development and pushes classic level design. With Mahler’s tweets about hiring new hopeful devs and how much of a shame it is that Sony shuttered Dreams without ever really giving it a real chance.
MOon Studios. I see your ambition and tireless efforts for No Rest for the Wicked. You want Wicked to be a project for a further 10 years, your big game, your Lord of the Rings… release full mod support and a Wicked Editor.
Put tools to extend and experiment with Wicked further into player’s hands and foster future game developers. I think this would be a dream and something I always wanted that was never fulfilled for this type of game, with Diablo II never receiving an editor of its own.
(A Wicked Editor would come closer to when the game itself is complete, closer to 1.0 or after)
I totaly agree it is allways way better when a game officially support mods.
Of course mods should work only for custom/private character/realm this character should be flaged and separated form the official vanila realms.
It’s just how they are implemented. Nothing I have seen suggests that Wicked is going for live realms in the way Diablo IV works. The realms are hosted by us and multiplayer requires invites.
Warcraft III has custom maps you can choose to host privately or publicly. I’m imagining creating dungeon gauntlets, you can host for your friends and allow others to play with their friends. (Rage inducing Mario Maker levels, etc.) Create your own multiplayer modes like how Warcraft III offered. This is the beauty of these mod editors, you are using the assets and tools the Devs used to design the game, this includes scripting.
I can easly see a future where part of the game is run on a server and save file are not stored locally, like Diablo 2 online just please don’t remove offline play.
I do see an official mod support helping keep this game fresh for 10 years easy. Mods can truly push games to the next level i support this. It would need some logistics and tuning for how it works with multiplayer.
I’d be concerned for the online PvP arena side of things with mods. I think there are two ways to best approach modding in NRftW:
Allow for Modded and Unmodded Realms and Characters (stated at creation). They would be isolated from each other completely.
Have a vetted list of “okayed” mods, similar to how Vermintide 2 has it. If all of your mods are verified, you can play normal. Otherwise, you go into modded mode.
Nobody so far has reached Bethesda’s level when it comes to game editors and frankly, Moon Studios has a good chance of making this particular game timeless simply because of it’s visuals.
The animation quality and overall tech capabilities are there. What’d be awesome after V1.0 releases would be to focus on crafting an in-depth equivalent to Bethesda’s Creation Kits and easily accessible & tweakable assets.
I know there’s more to it than that, if it was that simple so many devs would have made it possible. Here’s hoping it IS possible for Wicked!
Check out Witcher III’s REDkit. It is very good and a substantial improvement from the Creation kit. The full release is in a couple weeks and content is already being made during the technical test right now.
Wicked satisfies another genre and different elements of game design and classic level design that is very much needed. Something like Witcher III is more geared for environmental design, quest design, cinematic focus, and open world-- a definitive AAA experience.
We see the potential of Wicked and its ability to be a timeless classic of the Indie space. As Mahler has called it their Zelda (Link to the Past, imo) imagine being able to build from that.