What's going on with the Stardock Certification?

This is from the outside looking in, but I think it is fairly obvious that Stardock's resources have been devoted to other things- crash bugs, E3, additional features, updates, stuff like that. The Library has been a very low priority.

I continue to advocate having patience, once Stardock catches their breath we'll see some movement on the Library front.

One thing to keep in mind, the Library was a late addition to the 'plan'- suggested by the pre-release beta testers. They were probably surprised at how quickly the modding community started putting together content.

~SDC~

It's challenging finding mods who know the game really well and can test out hte mods.

It depends on what 'Stardock Certification' will mean, in my view.

Take me for an example. After I finish adding Improvements to the Writer (probably later tonight), I'll have parsed, prodded, poked, and in general just tested the heck out of every plain text file available (and am now eye-balling those hex based save game files). Not to overstate things, but I can look at a mod and know right away if there'll be a problem with it. And beyond that, I'll load it into the Writer and then save it back down so I know it's good.

So I'd rate pretty high on a *technical* knows the game well level. If 'Stardock Certification' means "Won't crash your game", I'd make a good choice (for example, I don't mean to make this into a nomination speech).

However, if 'Stardock Certification' means 'Doesn't break game balance', I'd make a poor choice. I just don't play enough to know if adding a Nuclear Missile at Corvette Tech is a poor balance choice, for instance. I do it, 'cause it's fun for me, but I have no idea if it's a game breaker in the wrong hands. For that you'd want one of the Meta-players with a bunch of games under their belt, like RayChua or Staffa.

Personally, I think you are better off with the latter. I think if it's in the Library, it has the veneer of legitimacy and should maintain play balance. Besides, if you arm them with the Writer then you'll have the best of both worlds- my technical expertise and their playing knowledge. Then they wouldn't *need* to know how the file needs to look, the program will proof it for them. They could give it a once over, save it, then play test it.

Enough babbling for one night, I'll go now.

I will add one more thing, there are going to be technical challenges with sharing mods beyond events. There are some issues with the files that don't lend themselves to sharing your work. Any file type that uses an ID is going to be problematic.

For instance, SB Module IDs have to be contiguous, if you leave a gap the module won't let itself be 'planted'. So a modder might start his IDs out at 56 (base GalCiv stops at 55). But that means we'll have a bunch of 56s in the Library- same ID won't work so that's not a good solution. So then maybe the enterprising Librarian might renumber the IDs so that there's no dupes. But whoops, someone doesn't want all the modules and guess what, that leaves a gap and now that someone is grumpy because he's downloaded something from the official Library that doesn't work and he just can't understand why not.

There's more, of course. Tech IDs are used as dependencies. Two modders picking the same Tech ID = trouble in paradise. At least the Tech IDs don't have to be contiguous, thank goodness. My solution here is to not use Tech ID as a requirement, IOW the Writer will read in a Tech ID as a requirement, but save down the Tech Name as the requirement.

I could go on, but I'm really babbling now. Suffice to say there's potential issues with Political Parties and their IDs, Improvements and their IDs, and more. I'll elaborate if you wish.

~SDC~