Stonehearth.net Community-Mod?

Hello Fellow Community-Members,

I was just asking myself today if a mod developed by the community of Stonehearth.net could be an interesting project. We have a lot of createive people in this forum already and although we do not know too many details, it could be fun to plan a joint modding project.

How could this look like? I guess a starting point could be to vote / define the mod in which the community is interested in. This might be a full-blown new race, a new and interesting profession, some additional features… whatever. After voting for the topic, a “project leader” should be elected, who is facilitating the community work. In the best case the mod should cover all aspects, i.e. designing some voxel-art, coding something, defining a “tree” (e.g. tech-tree).

As this would be a community project, all the work should be available for everyone all the time (kind of open source). So the .qmo-files from Qubicle should be shared with the community, plans for features should be discussed and published, etc. This would ensure that everyone could contribute and that it could turn into some kind of a showcase for people interested in creating a own mod.

Does this sound kind of interesting? Depending on the topic this might be a rather complex activity. It is also still some time to go until the Beta. On the one hand this allows for some detailed planning, on the other hand it might be difficult to stay motivated for such a long time. Just a thought for the moment…

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I think a race would be a pretty cool joint-project.

But what race? Hrm. Maybe orcs? Or an undead faction?

Ogres, maybe? Or something outside of the traditional RPG mold?

But yeah, I’d love to take part! I’d be happy to lend a bit of voxel art, and write up any lore needed for said project. I love writing!

definitely in favor of more community efforts, especially as it can be used (as you pointed out) as a working example for others to follow on their own projects… :+1:

and yes, we’re still an awful long way out from getting to crack open the game and muddle with the actual modding bits, but there is still quite a bit of pre-planning and initial leg work a community mod team could work on in the meantime…

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Yeah. Planning, basic outline work, etc. can be done before the game comes out. I’m sure it’ll also show the devs how much their community loves their game before it has even come out!

I was actually thinking about this a while ago, and I think it’d be a nice way to build an even tighter-knit community, plus stave off the wait (I cannot wait until Christmas. So many Kickstarter rewards…). [quote=“voxel_pirate, post:1, topic:2039”]
On the one hand this allows for some detailed planning, on the other hand it might be difficult to stay motivated for such a long time. Just a thought for the moment…
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I actually think that it might make it easier to stay motivated for a longer time, because generally ideas die out due to lack of interest or they just stagnate, whereas a community mod would take all the pressure of coming up with ideas or making models or coding off of that one person and help to distribute the workload over a group of people, especially since there are a lot of people who are extremely talented in those areas.

Edit: small example, compare @Skull24’s attempt to start a Qubicle challenge which only gets a few models a week in submissions because its less visible, vs the new monthly challenge (sure its longer, but it hasn’t been up for over a week) that already has about half a dozen submissions.

Well said. The only issue i have would be a cross over with something the devs might already do. But i really like this idea and concept of the community helping the community. I know i couldn’t make voxel models like some of you can like @Froggy and @voxel_pirate just to name 2 of the countless people that have done models that looked amazing. [quote=“voxel_pirate, post:1, topic:2039”]
defining a “tree” (e.g. tech-tree)
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I think no matter what happens I think this will be VERY important before any kind of mod could be put in place.

@voxel_pirate i am game to help in anyway i can.

I too think this would be a great idea! And I also think a new playable race (and attendant skills, architecture, items, etc.) would be a really fun idea, and in-depth enough for the whole community to get involved.

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Sounds interesting, I’d probably be best at coding and possibly ideas/mechanics-y stuff although I haven’t managed to get qubicle to run yet so I might have hidden skill in that.

As for what to make there is the oft mentioned idea of a new race but if we were going to do it would be best to try and get a mechanic to base it around and to make it different somehow, a race based around an aerial or aquatic environment or a nomadic race as examples. Other possibilities for what to make would include additional mechanics that could be used with any race like a religion system or the like with semi-advanced gods, beliefs, buffs, and class systems interwoven within it. There is another major idea that while likely being too ambitious at this stage would require enough effort that it would suit a community effort the best, The Total Overhaul, we make like a sci-fi ship based system with asteroid mining and the like without planets at all or build a competitive mode based with a tech tree as deep as something like civs in spanning from ancient to modern era’s, it would be be the most ambitious choice by far but it could also be something that could be by far the awesomest if completed so it’s definitely something to consider. Being able to plan for several months first could possibly even help it chances.

Just some varying ideas to think about when deciding on an idea and don’t forget that we can have multiple projects if multiple ideas get popular.

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Nice to see that it seems like there is some general interest. Let’s see where this thread is leading us to…

I agree with Xavion that probably a new race might require a lot of “re-skinning” via Qubicle, but not touch other elements. For a community effort I would expect to work on something more holistic. Art yes, but also game design. It should contribute to “improve” Stonehearth and make it more complex or to provide additional features / activities.

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How 'bout the mod spawns mythic structures/ruins (a giant impenetrable maze is spawned with the entrance above ground, in the center sits a Minotaur guarding treasure. the maze is old and falling apart with the occasional root coming through the ceiling). If you guys don’t like my idea I want to sign up as story teller/writer. I’m pretty good at FP story writing.

Ruins are likely either super heavy on the modelling/coding and really light on the other depending on whether they’re auto-generated or predefined. Could still work but for the goal of balancing the two it’s likely not the best choice. The problem with story writing and lore is that most of the game is procedurally generated so it can’t have a fixed lore and trying to program your creativity into an AI is damn near impossible, the only things that can have a fixed lore are those that are as close to fixed as possible like religions and somewhat or major race/faction specific parts. It’s just that fixed story telling is likely to play a minor part in most mods because of the nature of the game, like lore for something like minecraft in that it’s just not normally useful/possible.

I was thinking more of book/journals/tomes found scattered around the ruins.
The ruins can be of the many who have tried (and failed) before you showed up. (although this doesn’t fit my lore)StoneHearth Lore and stories

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Cool idea. I would like to join this.
I am in favor for a different race. It needs a lot of qubicle creations, and less coding (which we know little of atm) so that might be good. The race can be modeled after the vanilla race with some unique features added to it.

I’m in favor of basically anything, so long as we can have a math wizard known only as the Mathemagician.

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im in favour although i prefeer a new race as it gives much more stuff to do for everyone and it will be awesome to have other people to bounce ideas off of. imo the new race should be sea dwellers ((they are amphibious)lived under the sea)) that were recently forced to forsake their homes under the sea and start a new life on land. it gives new class’s, new architecture, new enemie mobs, new items both bling items and practical ones. All in all having a community mod that is a new race would be awesome and i am totally down to help.

@Xeno you should check out my [Ocean Nomad][1] mod im working on

And yes I am totally just advertising my stuff atm :wink:
[1]: Ocean Nomad Mod

@newf i like it but it kind of seems to depend upon their being boats and the race i was looking forward to making was like another PC race/faction. not saying that yours isn’t it just seems kind of like its not.

I think it would be a cool idea to do something unpopular (not hated but just something that doesn’t occur a lot) or a race completely unthought of.
Not sure just thinking.

Do they have to look like fish? :tropical_fish: :fish: :blowfish:

:smile:

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@Miturion ha that pretty cool but nah i have a modle made and am thinking of making a post asking if anyone wants to help me make the mod and i have a word document with stuff i would like to do i just dunno how to host a document online so people can view it short of taking screenshots and putting them on my imgur account. also if you want to help me make the race come to life that would be AWESOME and if you wanna help il send you the document and add you on steam or something and we can talk about it. also this goes out to anyone else who wants to help make a amphibious race happen.

edit also i think your modle has too much detail since most of the time you will be fairly far away from the modles although i do like the webbing on the hands and feet but the feet don’t seem fleshy enough.