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DarkBASIC Discussion / Possible to make Mods/Expansion packs for my games ?

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Mattuu
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Posted: 11th Feb 2003 05:25
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Hi,

I was wondering whether it was possible to make mods/expansion pack systems in DarkBasic Standard for my games ?

I'm looking to have something where I can have a menu of different versions you can play (similar to what happens when you install Starcraft and Broodwars upgrade) ..
Is that simply just them overriding an exe file with the changes and adding an options menu ?

Thanks a bunch,
Matt
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hexGEAR
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Posted: 11th Feb 2003 05:49
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i guess if you make any new changes or "expansions" to your old game, all you'd have to do is take the "changed" source and newly compilsed .exe and replace the old ones as you said!

your birth was a blessing, sent to live and die on earth as a lesson, we each have a star all you have to do is find it, once you do, everyone who sees it will be blinded - DMX
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QuothTheRaven
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Posted: 12th Feb 2003 22:03
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no hexgar, if you have a really big program you'd have to replace the whole thing.

What you SHOULD do is make the 2 codes seperate, in 2 seperate files. The main loop (with all the media), and the menu system (with its own seperate media, much smaller). In the main loop, call the old code from the seperate file. All you will need is the file name.

Then, if you want to update, just send out the updated menu code (in a seperate file) with the same name as the old one. The program will look for the file "menu", and it will find the new updated version. Get it?
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hexGEAR
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Posted: 12th Feb 2003 22:48
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hmm, well i could update my game by just exchanging new/modified code and newly created exe with the old ones, tried it out just now and it worked fine! same goes if you like added new media, if you had a load world code, just alter it to load your new media the replace the old code with the new altered one! well, i use a different coding system so it might not be as simple for you!

your birth was a blessing, sent to live and die on earth as a lesson, we each have a star all you have to do is find it, once you do, everyone who sees it will be blinded - DMX
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Megaman X
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Posted: 12th Feb 2003 23:58
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Depends what is ur point of view about mod . Like... if u do not protect ur data/media files, my sister could make a mode for my game... she just open some of the textures with photoshop, change it's color and there u go...
Same with models and everything :S.... we really need to protect our data files... somehow...

"A true warrior fights with skill, not anger..."

Gif edited by Kangaroo2
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hexGEAR
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Posted: 14th Feb 2003 00:05
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true that if your talking about a total conversion then you'll pretty much end up changing everything apart from the engine (would be easy depending on the way you coded it). But with simple ones like chaging characters then all you have to do is change you models and textures

your birth was a blessing, sent to live and die on earth as a lesson, we each have a star all you have to do is find it, once you do, everyone who sees it will be blinded - DMX
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 14th Feb 2003 01:05
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you know this is something that interests me... i wonder can the DarkBasic ExEs utilise -? extentions?
so like you can do

dbquake.exe -game "raven"

and that'd use the Raven directory instead of the dbq one or something like that.
i'll have to look this up cause be interesting to know wouldn't it - i mean you could possibly do it by say making 2 exes one which is the launcher which is used as the setup.ini so the game knows what to use, and the other one the actual modular game.

but makine one wouldn't be too hard, you just have to think damn'd hard and plan quite meticulously how to go about programming things - because you'll be programming the frameworks which the actual game useage is within the pack that is included really

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
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Richard Davey
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Posted: 14th Feb 2003 02:37
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Yeah sure it can - that's just reading stuff off the command line. See the CL$ command. What you pass in and how your program deals with it is up to you.

Cheers,

Rich

"Gentlemen, we are about to short-circuit the Universe!"
DB Team / Atari ST / DarkForge / Retro Gaming
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hexGEAR
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Posted: 14th Feb 2003 03:29
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wow, never knew about that command, could someone pls xplain further what this stuff means, don't understand it much and the tutorial isn't that helpfull

your birth was a blessing, sent to live and die on earth as a lesson, we each have a star all you have to do is find it, once you do, everyone who sees it will be blinded - DMX
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Richard Davey
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Posted: 14th Feb 2003 03:33
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You talking about "what does the CL$" command do??

Cheers,

Rich

"Gentlemen, we are about to short-circuit the Universe!"
DB Team / Atari ST / DarkForge / Retro Gaming
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hexGEAR
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Posted: 14th Feb 2003 03:45
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yep, dont understand what it really does!

your birth was a blessing, sent to live and die on earth as a lesson, we each have a star all you have to do is find it, once you do, everyone who sees it will be blinded - DMX
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 14th Feb 2003 04:26
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yeah i just checked this out, never needed it before so never looked ... could do something like this



i know that if i set it up like that i could then subcheck for the / and then take the appropriot action but its just an example

certainly is cool to know (^_^)

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 14th Feb 2003 04:27
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oh just incase you didn't get that code, it'll check for all of the "-" within the command line which is the string that directly follows the exe

so if i typed say "Test.exe -sd /640/480/16" then it'd start the game in 640x480x16bpp

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
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hexGEAR
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Posted: 14th Feb 2003 04:31
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wait so where would u type the "Test.exe -sd /640/480/16" part?

your birth was a blessing, sent to live and die on earth as a lesson, we each have a star all you have to do is find it, once you do, everyone who sees it will be blinded - DMX
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 14th Feb 2003 05:09
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that would be the boot up... you know like you can set quake to play a mod game by going

quake.exe -game teamfort

and then it'd boot up and use teamfort as the directory name for the base folder rather than id1

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
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Killer Sponge
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Posted: 14th Feb 2003 14:00
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This has bin a puzzler for at one time, cl$ is an easy command and will return anything put after the executable in target line in shortcut boxes or when typed directly into run

for example if you ran a program called "mygame.exe" and the target in the shortcut was "mygame.exe -mod1"
cl$ would return "-mod1"

get it.

However the entire mod thing has stumped me on how i get around. But usually everything i use in games is external, scripts,images,levels,models, Everything but the engine, so if you wrote a game like that you could have it work like quake, quake 2 or half-life by simply changeing its target directory where it gets its game media from!

Current Project: Sky Bird (Galaga Remake for Retro Comp)
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hexGEAR
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Posted: 14th Feb 2003 16:43
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thanks guys! i understand perfectly now!

your birth was a blessing, sent to live and die on earth as a lesson, we each have a star all you have to do is find it, once you do, everyone who sees it will be blinded - DMX
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Shadow Robert
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Posted: 14th Feb 2003 17:22
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well its not quite as simple as changing the media, becuase you still have to change how it is used

effectively with something like making the Quake engine, basically the engine provides the entire atmosphere - you then use a scripter to tell it how and where to use the media.
really if you were to make something like Quake, what i'd recommend is you make an editor like QuakeC ... so you have the basics to work from, but then you program in your own effects ... so like

v_weap.01 { `//<<darkbasic effect code>> }
and it'd then compile this into a darkbasic source which is used by the game, but should be in a compressed format so that source code is safe from each other and people who just wanna ripp off other games

however having an addon wouldn't be too hard to do if like you added an entire pack (^_^)
maybe i'll ask my brother to include this within his DarkBasic FPS engine - we've got a bet on about him being able to remake a decent FPS in DB without external help

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
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Mattuu
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Posted: 19th Feb 2003 09:29
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Raven, that is similar to what I was thinking

thanks everyone for the help .. I'll see what I can come up with .. I knew about command line arguments so that didn't really help but thanks anyways

Bye,
Matt

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Mattuu
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Posted: 19th Feb 2003 09:32
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oop .. I forgot .. recompiling a new exe with changes is considered a PATCH not a mod .. a mod is something external like a DLL that changes the way the game preforms..

so I was looking at a way to make a list of different game options like CTF etc. appear in a menu-type situation that the user could select to play from.

Thanks,
Matt

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Element
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Posted: 19th Feb 2003 14:05
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just make or buy a extracting/patch software that will allow you to do this much easier.

"Skateboard 'til the wheels come off"
SG=Shadows Gate
New RPG game coming to you from GP Interactive
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Element
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Posted: 19th Feb 2003 14:09
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You can also try out a small demo of some software that has hit pretty big for install/patch software:

Install:
http://http://www.clickteam.com/English/installmaker.php

Patch:
http://http://www.clickteam.com/English/patchmaker.php

"Skateboard 'til the wheels come off"
SG=Shadows Gate
New RPG game coming to you from GP Interactive
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