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Why Are Publishers Terrified Of Modders? (ft. Shivaxi - RLCraft) | Dev Heads
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This week, the Dev Heads crew are joined by Shivaxi to chat about the past, present, and future of mods.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Support
00:00:00
Speaker
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Hosts and Guest Introduction
00:00:33
Speaker
Hello, time for round two. What you guys don't know is that we've already done this once, but but we didn't realize that we weren't live because of something in the back end. But we'll do it again. Hello, everyone. Welcome to DevHeads, the podcast focused on the ins, outs and goings on of game dev with host experience ranging from indie double to triple A. I'm Jay, joined today by one of my wonderful co-hosts, Mikey. Hello, everybody.
00:00:57
Speaker
And today we don't have Tina, mainly because she's got IRL stuff to be taken care of, but we'll see her next week. She'll be missed though.
Importance of Modding in Game Dev
00:01:04
Speaker
But today we have a guest that we've wanted for a very long time. Modder and YouTuber extraordinaire, Shivakshi. Hello. Hello. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for double introing with us. yeah yeah before Before we, uh, when we did our dry run of this, Mikey, you gave such a wonderful intro to what we're, ah what and why.
00:01:25
Speaker
we're going to be talking about today. um I'm going to try and ask you to do it again, because this is very much your realm, this this modding and why we've got Shabaxy here. um Can you tell us a little bit about what we're going to be talking about today?
00:01:37
Speaker
Yeah, i want to I want to give some context here. On DevHeads, we've done like about 10 or 11 shows at this point, I think. And one of the things that I felt like we were missing, we have plenty of this indie and double and triple A representation, not just in our co-hosts, but in the guests that we bring on. We haven't really talked a lot about the modern communities and stuff, aside from the times where I gush about hideous destructor, one of my favorite mods ever.
00:01:59
Speaker
Outside of that, we haven't had a guest on that kind of like came out of that community. It's something that I'm very connected to. It's how I got started professionally in game development. So having Shiv on is one of those opportunities where we thought, okay, let's let's have somebody come on who can actually speak more to this, who's like more in the weeds right now and doing it with yeah his mod RLcraft, which I'll let him explain ah here in
Origin of RLCraft
00:02:19
Speaker
ah and a minute. So Shiv, like maybe you could talk a little bit about who you are and what r RLcraft is and how you got started in modding.
00:02:26
Speaker
um Yeah, I'm Shavoxi. A lot of people know RLCraft, I think, at this point, but in case you don't, um it is pain. It is a mod pack for Minecraft. It's accurate. Yeah, it's a mod pack for Minecraft that started just as a fun, it was for fun. you know By myself, I'm throwing mods together and editing them and kind of creating a new experience um from a lot of the awesome work that other modders had put out, mods and stuff that You could use and we're configurable to to make something and I ended up making. Something that a lot of people seem to like because I always wanted to have a I always looked at the survival mode of Minecraft and I was like this is such a great sandbox to kind of you could you could do there's so much more that could be done here, you know.
00:03:15
Speaker
Um,
RLCraft's Viral Success
00:03:16
Speaker
so that's how it got started. And then I dropped the, the one video that kind of blew up and it took off and it was like at the right time when Minecraft was kind of having this like resurgence. and And is that the video we're looking at now? The, the beginner's gut. Oh yeah. Yes. Yeah. that So that was the beginner's guide video. Um, which yeah, that blew up. That was 2019. I think that I put that out in like September. Um, and then.
00:03:38
Speaker
Everybody and their mom ended up playing RL Craft as a result. You had PewDiePie playing it, you had even MrBeast played it at some point. A lot of big top creators. Everybody was, yeah, it was crazy. It was very overwhelming. I didn't know how to react at that point, because I'm like, I'm just one guy doing my thing. It was a wild ride. It really was. Do you know how many downloads you have? We have. I can actually check.
00:04:07
Speaker
I'm looking at it now. It's twenty two point eight million. Yes. Yeah. We hit the twenty million mark. That's pretty wild. I would be overwhelmed, too.
Challenges of Rapid Popularity
00:04:16
Speaker
Although I'm sure that it start there. That's nutty. It came out in twenty nineteen or twenty eighteen. ah Twenty. Well, technically, it had been out for a little bit. Yeah, like twenty seventeen eighteen um is when I had uploaded it, but it didn't get any attention until the video in twenty nineteen. And that that's when it took off and it was like,
00:04:34
Speaker
got I think I think there was half a million downloads in a week or something um shit was insane to me, you know, so yeah, that that sort of blew my mind and I was like, there was a moment of panic, right? Because I didn't know.
00:04:54
Speaker
but Let's just say that you know when your your work, your a game, your mod pack, whatever is exposed to half a million people, you know there's some issues and bugs that come to light that you would have never even like thought about. So I mean, there was about 20 dupe glitches I had to fix like immediately and I'm like trying to roll out patches as fast as I can. So it was, oh man, it was a good time, good time. but And that's one of those parallels that mirrors official game development just as well, especially nowadays.
Motivations Behind Modding
00:05:24
Speaker
Like the, holy shit, we're super popular. Holy shit, now we're testing the game on so many different people's machines. Holy shit, everything's broken. And we have to fix it as fast as possible because while we are excited and elated that people are enjoying the wonderful thing that we loved and we created, ah they're also really pissed off. So let's try to let's try to lower that a little bit.
00:05:45
Speaker
is a A question for both of you, right? Cause you're, you're both, you know, have worked on mods that have seen an unprecedented amount of success, right. And, and been, you know, raised to this, this level. Do you feel like.
00:06:01
Speaker
from why you got into modding, because most of the modders I've met um have gotten to it for the love of it, not for to get big numbers or to, you know, try and reach as many people as possible. Do you feel like ah that feeling kind of changed when you hit a certain level of popularity to a point where you felt like you were responsible? You had to like, you felt more responsible to fix those bugs and to get that stuff out quickly because there are so many more people waiting. Yeah. Do you want to go first about that or?
00:06:31
Speaker
No, take it, take it and then i'll I'll speak to it. um So, yeah, I i made R.L. Craft and I even made the beginner's guide video for friends, right? I had a passion for I've been on YouTube doing YouTube videos since 2008, you know, and by no means was I.
00:06:49
Speaker
big channel at all you know i did it for the love of it the passion of it um so it was really fun just to do that video and i did it for my friends this was ah rlcraft started as a zip file that i uploaded to google drive because a curse forge wasn't a thing yet or i didn't know it was a thing wow so like i was sending it like manually to friends that we could just Just play and and they didn't know how to play because it was so there was just a lot It was very in-depth and I was like well why I really should make a guide for my friends to help them get started and that's where the beginners guide came in But yeah, there was um I would say there was a moment Man Fani I saw Fani in the chat Fani is one of ah my developers now Fani who?
00:07:37
Speaker
funny Yeah, funny. um yeah he He is aware of of this time where 2.6. So Minecraft blew up on version 2.5. That was when the beginners got dropped. 2.6.
00:07:50
Speaker
um You will see that there is no 2.6, there's no 2.6.1 or a 0.2 because i we can curse on this show, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I fucked up. I fucked up real bad. I released 2.6, 2.6.1 and 2.6.2 way too fast because I was in that like panic mode of like oh god, now I do have a responsibility. i need to I need to fix, it's broken, there's a bunch of people playing it, and it was very it was really like overwhelming stressfulness. um Fortunately, I i did, like that kind of smoothed out um over time, and it was it it um there was that like while there was that initial surge of, like yeah, like you said, you know there was ah you've you felt this like big kind of responsibility now, I have i have fortunately kind of grown and managed to take a step back and just be like,
00:08:44
Speaker
okay, it's still it's still my personal project, we're just chillin', you know, take my time, do things right, you know, and the updates come out when they when they come out, and I think a lot of people are aware. I mean, we had about two years between 2.8.2 and the big 2.9 update, like we really took our time with that, and and it's it's turned out for the better. I think it's it's it's nice to have been able to kind of like take a step back, but there was, yeah, there was that initial like, oh you know, kind of panic, whatever,
00:09:14
Speaker
But yeah, that's kind of my experience with that, so. Yeah. What about you, Mikey? Well, for me, I feel like I i got started in modding, I guess, for two reasons. Like it was because it was exciting to me because I was a gamer and also it was a bit of career exploration. I was at ah i was in, k I guess, the the first, the most memorable part, possibly like the the earliest I get into it. And also like probably my biggest well-known mod wasn't anything like crazy, like what we have here with RLCraft, but it was a Half-Life 2 mod called Under Hell.
00:09:49
Speaker
And ah before
Mikey's Modding Journey
00:09:50
Speaker
that, I was messed around a little bit. i was I was doing the I was at the University of Delaware and I was involved with the radio station there. And I thought, you know what, i I enjoy the voiceover aspect of this. What if I kind of combine that with my love for gaming and did some sort of amateur voice work for for games?
00:10:06
Speaker
And the easiest way to get people to agree to use me was to go to the modding scene and just do it for free. So that that was Underhell, or excuse me, that was ah the Half-Life 2 modding scene. and I did a couple different ones. hu ah I did some test recordings, I guess. I don't even know if they ever got uploaded, even never released for a Half-Life 2 mod called For Hire, I think it was. ah That might have been the first. And then shortly after that, I got involved with Underhell.
00:10:31
Speaker
And then my role there kind of ballooned a little bit, where like I started writing some dialogue, I started doing like narrative design, I was helping out the weapon design, doing community stuff. I was so excited and energized by that, because I thought, wow, like I'm seeing the other side, because I'd been playing mods my whole life, because I didn't always have a great computer, and I could keep playing mods for the games that were you know ah less cutting edge, less new, because I could run them, right? Yeah.
00:10:58
Speaker
and ah I think through under hell, I kind of realized, wow, like this this could be a real thing for my career, maybe. like People like my work here. Maybe I should try to go professional. And that led to like working on Insurgency and stuff like that, ah Black Mesa. And I think, I don't remember like a specific moment where I realized that, but I remember the experience of
00:11:23
Speaker
I guess the best one would be like watching a Twitch streamer play your game and having like this many hundreds of people watching going, oh my God, like it's it's real. Fortunately, I didn't have to fix a lot of bugs or anything so because I was doing the the other stuff. ah but but And I was able to enjoy and absorb that. So I didn't feel the stress that Shu just described of like, oh, I got to fix a bunch of shit. I got the rest of my laurels and be like, wow, this is so great. That being said, I was doing like community stuff, right at least a little bit. So there's, of course, some stress there. And and I was still working on you know like the narrative design stuff I did. But it was a really, really empowering, awesome feeling.
00:11:59
Speaker
And it's part of why I always encourage people who are interested in in game development to check out modding. It's a fun way to explore this. Dip your toes in, right? and But in in a way where you get to experience working on something you love um or or can have access to, you like you were saying, Mikey. And it's always been the thing where I've played games where I haven't dipped my toes fully into modding yet because I do want to.
00:12:26
Speaker
ah because It allows me to stay in those worlds and those games that I do adore. um And I want that. I want to be able to to give more to the to the like that community. Because I guess this is the idea of like why do you guys feel modders get into mods? Because it's something that Tina was saying and she can't because she's not here at the moment. But I'll parrot it. She was saying that modders seem very selfless. like They're just giving. They're not trying to take something or gain something from a wider community.
00:12:58
Speaker
like their original intention is to just give the that the community there a part of something to enjoy. Do you guys agree with that? Yeah. um I have a personal experience I can kind of share related to that. But I think it's very much a just a love and a passion for the game. And that is how I first got into modding. So Minecraft's not the first modding experience for me. It would have been unreal.
00:13:25
Speaker
ah You know like not the engine, but the game unreal from 1998 We're talking unreal engine one everybody single-digit. Yeah, yeah, right so so the first digit there was unreal game most people know unreal tournament that came out in 1999 but before an old tournament there was unreal which was um ninety ninety eight 1998 single-player as somebody's got the video of yeah perfect the it was single-player um You're on an alien you crash land on an alien planet after you were being taken prisoner to some random prison moon And it's an unknown planet and and you're the last one alive you got to fight aliens escape You know it's very classic cliche nowadays, but by back then I was like and they you know they were competing with quake too at the time and their engine this was the big thing that kind of show and push their engine and
00:14:10
Speaker
Um, and I got into unreal. I think I was nine years old. I think ah last year might've been, might've been nine years old, eight years old or nine years old, getting an unreal tournament. And then the next year was unreal. Um, um which my mom wasn't very happy. I was playing shooter games at that age, but yeah yeah that was, um that was my dad's side. So my dad was like, here, have all the, have all the, I'm playing dude. This is a rocket son. This is a rocket launcher. Yeah, wow thanks. dad Blow people, up you know. i was like But anyway, the rest is history with that. And, you know, Unreal is my favorite game of all time. um And I modded for Unreal. um They shipped the editor with the game just so that you could do whatever. It was super easy to just jump in and um you know make custom weapons or, you know, levels and and textures and everything else. um
00:15:03
Speaker
I say it was super easy, ah but initially it it wasn't. And so one of my fondest memories was we were trying to figure out how to, um I guess, compile. It would be called baking today in like newer Unreal Engine. Back then you just called it building the map or rebuild. If you made any changes to geometry, um you had to rebuild the map. Otherwise it like didn't function. So if you tried to play, your character would just immediately die because none of the collision had like been reformed. So we would try to edit a map, me and my dad, and then we and then we didn't know about rebuilding. So we were like, why are we just dying? this and And this is, I mean, we're talking like the internet days where we still had dial up and DSL. you what So there's not a lot of info out there. And I remember
00:15:52
Speaker
3 a.m. in the morning, I get woken up by my dad going, Roman, come downstairs. ah you know And i I jump out of bed and I fly downstairs and my dad had did it. He had made an edit to Facing Worlds in Unreal Tournament, the most famous capture the flag map, right?
00:16:12
Speaker
um And he had modified the geometry and figured out the rebuild thing and was able to, and he was running around with his modified geometry in facing worlds. And just, just that was like so cool. I was just like, Oh my my God, we figured it out. you know So.
00:16:30
Speaker
What a wonderful story, man. You and your pops doing that. That's so cool. I think that, yeah, that's like one of my favorite memories of that. And that that like really, I think was one of the pushes that got me into my, I was just like, Oh my God, this is amazing. I want to do this. Ignited the fire. My favorite game. And I'm able to like, I'm able to make additions to it. Like, whoa. You know, it's just very kind of like a mind blowing thing. yeah guess and Games are like these, when we were younger, right? Games are these mythical things that are you know, these super fun things that ah you you buy from stores and you play through and these crazy experiences. And I bet being able to make a change or an addition to your favorite game of all time must have been such a mind blowing and like enlightening moment for you, like a foundational moment. It's funny you say
Game Development Perspective Shift
00:17:17
Speaker
that games were like a mythical thing because it's true. I i remember exactly how I thought games worked when I was a kid.
00:17:27
Speaker
yeah You don't, it's not something you don't, you don't, I just, I don't know how else to say it other than to say it, but I thought it was like a kind of a real world in a sense. The first time I discovered that you could type in the the fly cheek command, right? And go, and just go flying through the level. The first thing I tried to do was I opened up Facing World and tried flying to the planet that was in the sky box.
00:17:54
Speaker
Cuz I thought it was really there. I was like, oh my god. Has anybody tried this before? What if there's something over there, you know? ah And then and then I hit like the invisible collision. I was like, oh, yeah, it's not dar You dream your child like wonder Shattering against the bounds of the level. Yeah, but it' say it's funny. You don't think about it when you're a kid You just think you just think oh my god. There's a real world. Yeah, so I was like ah Yeah, it's just funny, you know It's, it's crazy. Like I, I had a lot of those moments when I was a kid, like always now. And I think this is one of the problems with making your passions, your job. And I do want to talk to to you guys about that in, in terms of modeling, but, um, like game dev for me, when I, you know, studied game dev taught it, you know, and now I'm working in it, it's in a way.
00:18:47
Speaker
ruined games for me. Um, because like, I view them as textures and code and written dialogue and voiceover. And i I don't view them as a world. I view them as their individual parts that I can respect and like dissect and stuff like that. And I don't view it like as a kid. We're like, I talk about it a lot on second wind, but like beyond good and evil,
00:19:11
Speaker
is my favorite game of all time. And to me, like you said, you've actually that world existed. And I thought that just over that hill, whereas now I know that's not accessible. That's just, you know, LOD set decoration. That's an invisible wall to me.
00:19:27
Speaker
There was another city over there. There was more game. There was more story over there. I wanted to get it so much. Hence why for anyone who's played the game, getting the beluga and to suddenly being able to fly in this world rather than, you know, traverse ah it on a hovercraft was that foundational moment for me of like.
00:19:47
Speaker
games are more games are you know bigger and um more than just being on the ground um like if with what I was speaking about before like have you guys found that as you've become more entrenched in game dev and modding that the that kind of wonder of games has gone but has it been replaced by anything else um I was I was going to mention, actually, it's you know, I totally agree with you there. it It is like I do see a lot of things. It's like, you know, oh, here's an invisible wall texture asset. Oh, this is probably like a trigger box to set this thing. All right. I do that a lot. I can't help it. You know, I'm i'm so familiar with how games work at this point. yeah You can't help it. And some of that imagination yeah is unfortunately lost. But you know what brought it back, actually?
Rekindling Gaming Passion
00:20:31
Speaker
wasn't was was Baldur's Gate three. Wow. Okay. um Oh my god that. Oh, so three I think like because they did stuff I had never like seen before the whole experience of Baldur's and and I haven't even Okay, I have 200 hours in Baldur's Gate 3 and I'm not even out of Act 1 yet Which is a testament to how much content there actually is Because it's not that I've just been sitting there with the game open overnight or something No, I've been playing and and there's there's there are so so much there's so many secrets and things to discover and explore and everything is like perfectly beautifully animated and
00:21:12
Speaker
in death and immersive and there were things they did that I was just like, ha how? Baldur's Gate 3 really sucked me back in for a good bit with like just that that kind of wonderment of you know fantasy and everything. Oh man, so, so good. The detail, right? It's the i I had a different experience with Baldur's Gate 3 because um I was making a video on it and I have like a certain amount of time to make videos. So I was like, I'm going to play this straight for a week and try and do everything. um Obviously didn't even scratch the surface, but finished the game and tried to do everything I could. But it's that level of detail of
00:21:55
Speaker
my dev brain would go, oh, if they had infinite time and money, it would be cool if they did this here. And then I'd go and try and they would have done it. And I'm like. Holy shit. This is exactly ah every single time. Sorry, sorry. um Yeah, no, no, no. So the there was a clip playing of of me figuring out the water bottle thing. They're like, my my my group was on fire and I had this this random water bottle in my inventory. And I'm like, OK, surely the devs didn't think about this, right? There's no way they're just going to let me throw this water bottle on my teammates to put them out of fire. And and it worked. And I was like,
00:22:35
Speaker
you know, such a good game. Yeah. It's like, it's for me, it's like that, that childlike wonder and got replaced with or and respect for like the lengths developers would go to for those types of details. And I completely agree with you. Baldscape free is like just the height of that. Like every single aspect of it is just covered in love and dedication. And like, I don't want to say needless detail because If you have hundreds of those tiny details, you know, 99 of them, most players are never going to see, but that one that they do, they'll have a thought in their head. And this is why it emulates D and D so well. You'll have this thought on your head of like, I, like you said, I, I bet you can't do this and you can. And that one detail might be what spurs you to keep going. What makes you fall in love with it and stuff. yeah It didn't reignite that love for gaming.
00:23:30
Speaker
i have um I still have the magic, the the way I refer to it. And I feel like I've ah i've heard other people I've worked with.
Maintaining Excitement in Game Dev
00:23:39
Speaker
ah we We use that vague, ambiguous term like the magic. You got to keep the magic. It's it's not something that's unique, I think, to to gaming. I remember talking to a priest once and he was explaining to me, I was in his office and he he was explaining to me like the significance of his ah like a lantern on his desk.
00:23:57
Speaker
And he said, like, that represents me. I have to keep the flame alive. I have to make sure that I remember I don't just fall into the motions of ah sermons. I don't just fall into the motions of, like, administrative stuff. I have to keep the light of God. He's a priest, right? So he put it very poetically and nicely. I have to make sure that I keep the the the light of God and, like, the reason why I do what I do ah alive within me. It's like a reminder. And ah that's kind of like that that That as a comment, I feel like it sounds silly to compare something as spiritual and significant like that to video games. But that's like what I feel like developers have to do in some sense. They have to kind of remind themselves of like the magic and like why they got in. And I feel like everybody has their own way of doing it, or they have their own way of coping. So the the coping example
00:24:43
Speaker
would be something like, okay, because I work on this ah crazy, I don't know, like a MOBA, I'm not able to enjoy MOBA's that much, but I'm really going to enjoy all these other things because MOBA's like, I'm just so overloaded with the work and the balance required. And like, I associate it with with my job and like my brain just can't, I can't feel the magic there, but I'm going to, I mean, I'm going to care about it. I'm going to put the time in.
00:25:06
Speaker
And I'll get my love of gaming out from like other genres ah the the way that's like one strategy I feel like and it's not necessarily a strategy sometimes it could just be an effect right for me, I feel like I pull from old video games a lot because when I was young and I knew nothing about game development, I i feel like i there there was the mystique of the magic was was very pure. And when I go and I watch old game footage or I play old games, or even when I like just like explore that era and play old games that I never played before, I feel like I can tap into that magic a little bit because I think about like how how wide open and how much had yet to be explored. And it just kind of fascinates me im like ah
00:25:51
Speaker
I don't want to say like a historical way, but in like a pastoral way, something like that. Like just the the way games used to be made and like ah how inspiring they can be and like how you could trace their lineage, all the connections that makes help helps me preserve the magic. I also, I think I'm sensitive to nostalgia. So like tapping into that sensitivity too helps a lot. And it's part of why I was so involved with mods and still play a lot of like old video games and mods to this day.
00:26:17
Speaker
Uh, um, yeah, it's, it's something that, uh, that's one of the ways that I keep the magic and also a lot of gaming with friends that'll help you keep the magic too. I think a hundred percent. Yeah, for sure. it's ah It's a battle, right? I think one of the things as devs that you can do to kind of keep that magic alive is.
00:26:35
Speaker
like we were talking about with Baldur's Gate 3, is adding those details that you're fully aware that most people aren't going to see, um but might be the inspiration for, say, a younger gamer, ah might be that spark that either keeps them playing or gets them interested in game dev or just art in general. And um a lot of the time devs don't have the time to add those tiny details. um And what I see a lot with mods is modders adding these things in um or making games a lot more um complex to their liking so that they themselves, not necessarily a wider community, but they can have those experiences um and then, you know, give them to the rest of the world. Is that something that you wanted to do, Shavoxie, with RLClaft? Like, add some ah some complexity and some details that you just wished were in the game and then snowballed? Like, what was it like for you?
00:27:29
Speaker
Um, yeah, I really just wanted to deal as much pain as possible.
Evolution of RLCraft
00:27:33
Speaker
Well, succeeded. You sitting in the corner of your dark room. Book the world. I'm going to make them. I'm going to make them feel pain. like That was you. And then you got in the computer and started scripting. Yeah. No, it's not. Um, again, it well, I yeah, like I said, it started just as a passion. pro It was it was really just for myself, for the fun of it and for my friends. Um,
00:27:59
Speaker
i think i don't know I think in the beginning, I wasn't really thinking about um adding a lot of cool little details and things for you know people to explore and experience um back then, because again, I was just kind of making it for myself.
00:28:20
Speaker
um and nor the Funny enough, um you know, because it was still kind of like in development when it blew up. There was a lot of things in our craft that I didn't even know were things yet, you know, because some of the mods were so big I hadn't like gotten the certain sections of them yet to kind of like refine them. But I think as time went on and we do more and more updates. Yeah, I have um I started to put in um ah some good Easter eggs and and and other Other things that I wanted to flesh out, I mean, okay. Fani can attest to this. We revamped the entire fishing system and made it more like Stardew Valley, because I love Stardew Valley and I love the fishing in Stardew Valley. yeah yeah and see And nobody fishes in Aral Craft. Nobody. It's not even, you know what I mean? But it was something that I was passionate about. And now if that is a route you decide to take, the fishing system is really fleshed out and really cool and fun. You know, even though it's like really not what
00:29:19
Speaker
people play our aircraft for, you know, it so it's like, yeah, we we have started to do things like that now, I would say for sure. Yeah. So speaking to a scale and you said like when when our aircraft got popular and when it started to blow up and stuff, at what point did you start to make that transition in your head of?
00:29:38
Speaker
Oh, I can't do this by myself. Like, i I need this needs to expand. Like, what does that look like? Because that's quite unique for for a lot of modders is having to ah have a team of people, right? What was that like? I don't know if I'm a unique case here. Um,
00:29:58
Speaker
But that kind of thought, I don't think ever happened. um Because what ended up happening was people very talented and more talented and than me, especially when it comes to like Java. Okay, here's, I can't code to save my life. I write some.
00:30:14
Speaker
I write zen script stuff you know to to help with some of the things that are custom but in terms of like raw java coding i wouldn't know the first thing i had to do that so so people much smarter than me in that field actually approached me and was like hey i noticed this this and that and these are problems and i'm a coder and i want to help fix blah, blah, blah. And it was like, oh, cool, let's do it. You know, it was just it it really just became like one big passion project. And I think, yeah, I think we've stuck true to that. um You know, it's I want to stick true to that. I think that's great. ah So it's like everybody who's like on the team, it's kind of funny calling it like a team because it nothing nothing's really official. We're just like a group of friends now really just having fun and and making new updates and coming up with cool ideas and and pushing the kind of like vision of
00:31:04
Speaker
of RL craft and it's all just through the The fun for it's the passion of it. Um, yeah, i didn I didn't like go out and seek like alright I need this team member and that guy and yeah, like you make applications and like so free yeah Stuff like that. No, I think the only thing I really did with that regard and there's a couple things were like we reached out to other modders of Mods that we included um and we and then we ended up working with them to like, you know, hey, um, I This would be really cool if we if we could kind of like, this is a little buggy right now or it doesn't work well with this mod. So um would it be cool if we can kind of like work together to fix this? And then we ended up working with um the you know the people that made, ah we've worked with Young. um I know he's very big and you know, he has Young's better mind shafts, Young's better ah everything. um Young is great. He's awesome. I met him at TwitchCon. We worked with the developer, Spartan weaponry, um developer of ISO 5.0.
00:31:57
Speaker
Yeah, you know so we ended up working with a lot of these devs just through ah just reaching out at me like, hey, it would be cool if we could do this. And that was really it, and then we did. um I was going to say the one thing that I really had to kind of like commission, for example, was um I wouldn't put RLCraft on Curseforge until I had the spawner control mod. which For people who don't know, can you explain what Curseforge is?
00:32:25
Speaker
Oh ah yeah, Curseforge is um one of the main websites for hosting mod packs and stuff. I think they were the first, somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they were the first um website that allowed the creation of mod packs.
00:32:41
Speaker
um In an easy way, they have their own launcher now. It's how you would play RLcraft today is by using the Curseforge launcher and then you find it on their website and download it. And and all the the downloads and the files come from Curseforge. So it's like nothing is packed directly into RLcraft, or at least not the mods.
00:32:59
Speaker
and then Yeah, so it's kind of like ah it's it's a big hub and a launcher for hosting mods and stuff. There's like modrith and stuff now I don't know if modrith has like their own like modpack creator kind of thing, but um curseforge is where I started with all that Um, but yeah, sorry i continue. Yeah, no, fine. Um, I I needed uh to in order to put rlcraft out in a way that like I wanted it to to be publicly accessible. I had to fix spawners, okay? so I'm sorry, but ah spawners in Minecraft were a mistake. because People were farming them, right? It was a farming issue, right? yeah You could just make a little farm and get infinite XP. And and I made RLCraft to be very heavily kind of like XP focus, um where you know you use all that to build skills and attributes and everything else and abilities.
00:33:45
Speaker
you know um So it was like i had to I had to make spawners a limited source right in order to fit the vision. And that that was one thing I had to reach out to a Modern and say, hey, would you be able to code this for me and for Aralcraft? That was way, way, way before I had like a a team like I have now. you know So classic designer problem, right? you just like ah Just like a person we were working on a AAAA or indie game, like, hmm, there's a problem. ah What's the problem we're trying to solve? People are farming. it's It's something that everybody does. It's not very fun gameplay. It's boring, but it's the meta way to play.
00:34:24
Speaker
ah We don't want to like remove this feature because spawners, you know we won we want to have enemies spawn. How do we get around this? How do we fix this? And yeah you found the person that you needed and you developed a solution, you implemented it, you tested it, and there you go. And now I think it works where spawners, they degrade, I think, in RLCraft. They only spawn so many. I forget how.
00:34:49
Speaker
it's It's after you kill a certain number of mobs from the spawner that the spawner will automatically break. And you're incentivized to kill the spawner faster because more and more mobs will start to spawn quicker if you don't handle it.
00:35:00
Speaker
yeah And the spawners also drop XP and and loot by breaking it. But if it breaks on its own, it doesn't drop anything. um So I mean, of course, there are still ways to kind of like farm and and min-max these systems. But that's always going to happen no matter what. yeah um It's good enough to the point where it's like, I had thought of a solution and and had it designed out exactly how I wanted it. um And the coder um went ahead and did that. That was Pyro, was his name. And he did all that, ah PyroFab, I believe.
00:35:28
Speaker
It's been five years. um But yeah, and and and he did it exactly what I wanted. That was my solution. And it's it's worked, you know, ah for for the last five years that Aurokratz has kind of been a thing. So it's worked out fortunately, you know.
00:35:41
Speaker
have you yeah Have you found like when reaching out for these either mod collaborations or even fixes of of you know current systems and that communication, have you found that modders have been eager to help or have some been quite protective over there their mods and their their
Collaboration in Modding
00:35:58
Speaker
vision? Because I would assume they've been collaborative.
00:36:01
Speaker
Yeah, and and sorry to piggyback on that one thing I'm wondering, and this is more of a gut thing, but I can't help but wonder. Do you feel like they are more willing to help you because our all craft was huge and successful? Or was it because the Minecraft community is just very collaborative?
00:36:15
Speaker
So when I commissioned the spawner control mod, um it was that was 2018. It was before RLCraft blew up. So there was no like, ooh, let's do it because of RLCraft's popularity. I think some things may have had an influence. Oh, Jung is in the chat. Hi, Jung. Hi, Jung. What's up, Jung? I think after RLCraft kind of blew up, yeah, I do think there was probably some, that was a thing that modders maybe thought of like, oh cool, this would be fun to just get in on the RL craft and the popularity of it. But ah first mom spawner control. No, that was um totally just the guy just was willing to help me out. He's very chill about it. um He he didn't even ask for any like you know payment and stuff. Then, um you know, he has all the download credit now. So I like because Chris Forge basically will pay you for the number of downloads you get. um So he he gets all the download credit. And every time somebody downloads our craft,
00:37:13
Speaker
ah That mod gets downloaded he gets credit for that right okay, um so it worked out that because because again I was I was nothing nobody I didn't have you know ah I didn't really have any money. I didn't have ah Any popularity with that so you aren nobody damn it you made oral co-op for unreal yeah but that wasnt that wasn't super high That was how I found Chavoxie was I was on one of my mod trips and found the co-op realism mod for for unreal one But anyway continue. Yeah, no and he just he just he just did it to to help me out and I was really cool You know, um and I'm glad it worked out
00:37:48
Speaker
um and And now he's he's actually able to kind of ah get paid for that work retroactively. Like that's really, that's sweet. I think that's awesome. That is a big thing with Curse Forge actually that they they even do that. I think that's great. I didn't know they did that, right? that that's That's huge for me because a lot of the things I see with modders and why I see them as like mythical creatures in my mind is because a lot of Most game devs I know aren't in it for the money, right? Like game devs don't make a horrific amount of money for their salaries or you know or they're not in it for the fame or like you know the prestige of releasing a you know ah top tier indie game or something. But modders seem so selfless and just wanting to create a cool experience for people to enjoy. And it's so nice to hear that when you've reached out to people like Young or you know some of these other modders,
00:38:39
Speaker
It's just it for me, it just feels so wholesome and they're like, let's just create something cool for us and other people to enjoy yeah um and do it together rather than this protectiveness. Yeah, right sure not everybody's like that. um Yeah. Yeah, go on.
00:38:53
Speaker
i was going to just go say I agree with that, but I also think to some degree, we're all just obsessed little nerds. like who true and im i'm i'm I'm saying that in a silly way, but but I think yes, there's there's a kind of like ah ah the community aspect to it, of like let's get together and do it.
00:39:10
Speaker
So like, this fucking game needs this. Why did why had the devs screw this up? Oh, I'm going to do it myself. Like, I think that's a big part of a lot of modding philosophy as well. And the the just like weird, it's like Tim Schafer said when when he was on, right? Like, oh, some games just imprint on you through that imprint process.
00:39:29
Speaker
We also kind of get to a point where it's like, I really love this thing for some reason, I'm obsessed with it, it imprinted on me, and I want to keep engaging with it, but I already beat it seven times. so um Should I beat an eighth time? I think i'll I'll change, hold on, what's the what's this text file here? yeah Oh, i could look what I can do, and what's this editor? And then you start making stuff. So so I definitely agree, like it's it is wholesome, and I mean, I'm an enormous mod dork, but also it's it's funny to me how much,
00:39:57
Speaker
how much you can create by just being an obsessed little nerd. Because that's what I feel like all game developers are too, not just the mob. It's like we just we're just a weirdly obsessed with creating on the screen the things that we want to we want to do. And sometimes to to the point of like ah to the point of pain or or unhealthiness. But but yeah, that's that's um that's an interesting aspect, at least ah that I feel like I've learned in in game development.
00:40:27
Speaker
Zeke Shadow says modding out of spite is very real. Yeah, I'm sure it is. And Zeke's from Zeke. I know. Hi, Zeke. What's up? Plays like a lot of like ah old game content on his channel and then also is and involved with like the Doom modding community ah more than me. I only just kind of like got into it a little bit. I'm testing some stuff and those fuckers have been around for a while and they're very obsessed. They're doing a lot of shit for the past you three decades. about this before.
00:40:54
Speaker
um What's that Doom mod you you mentioned that was like super, super late yeah um survivally like, that was so cool. Hideous destructor. Yeah. Hideous destructor. It's a, it's a Doom one and two mod that like the original 1993, 94, I think ah Doom one and two that turns the game into like the, the, the, the tagline is ghosts and goblins meets Ghost Recon. It's like a part simulation.
00:41:23
Speaker
part survival, part... part like ammo, like it's it's part simulation, survival, tactical shooter is probably the best way to put it. Where if you can imagine playing a Doom mod and like taking the pistol mag out of your weapon and then putting the pist the pistol away and then individually loading nine millimeter rounds into your pistol and then having four different ones and then like switching between them and going like, I'll load this one and they'll be gone. That's hideous destructor and it's fucking rough. I love it for unreal. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I like, and look at the, look at the, the fucking games I worked on, right? And so I didn't see it even for me and onward. I just really like hardcore shooter stuff. And I never been, and like mining is where the experimentation happens, right? i've I've truly never played anything like hideous destructor. Its core loop is just so different. And, you know, when you're into tactical shooters and you finally find something that feels
00:42:15
Speaker
different. It's awesome. the the The vibe is also great. There's like a, there's an interesting sort of background narrative to it too. Unlike most tactical shooters, every weapon feels distinct because right now in tactical shooters, we kind of do that gun fetishization thing, right? Where it's like, all right, uh, just put all the guns in there. Everybody likes people know for movies and other games and they're all going to act like assault rifles and they're all going to do similar damage. And it's like, I like that stuff too. Don't get me wrong, but, but it's hard to create an experience that feels like the, some of the other like high lethality aspect. You have to keep the high lethality of a tactical shooter, but then it also feels like you need to,
00:42:54
Speaker
You need to distinguish weapons. You play Max Payne or Half-Life. All the weapons are have distinct, clearly different designs, right a a role. But when you play a tackle shooter, they don't. This mod I'm talking about is just an example of, like oh, all these guns feel different. But they're also all still pretty lethal. And I mean i could go on for a while. But that' that's ah just some of the reasons why I really like that. And again, it's just a testament to the experimentation of modders. Yeah.
00:43:21
Speaker
So speaking to our title, um why do you guys think that publishers and to an extent some developers are scared of modders
Publishers' Fear of Mods
00:43:36
Speaker
in a way? Like, why are they getting them removed? Like, why aren't publishers just letting modders get on with it? Like, because what harm can they bring?
00:43:46
Speaker
I, so I talked to Mikey about this before is I don't know really much about this topic. So, um, I'll probably just let you guys talk about that one. Cause I wasn't even aware. Like this was kind of like a thing. I guess, I guess if we're talking about Nintendo suing everybody, then yeah, you know, Nintendo, um, Oh no. What's the publisher that, uh, owns a rock star. What are they called? Take two. Take two. Oh yeah.
00:44:11
Speaker
it Take two, removing a lot of mods from the online. um And I get it from like an online experience and stuff like that, but there has been a history of, ah for me, there's there's either one or the other. Devs and publishers are either embracing mods and in Bethesda's case, encouraging them to ah kind of and fix their experiences as they come out.
00:44:33
Speaker
or they are putting a hard stop. No, no mods um on on their game. And I think it's fascinating to think why, like, what about mods is scaring scaring the put these publishers away? It's so what do you think, Mikey? Oh, sorry, go on. That's OK. If you guys.
00:44:52
Speaker
Yeah, go for it ship and then I'll then I'll win. Yeah, I was just gonna say it's it's a little baffling to me because um I grew up again with unreal, unreal tournament. A lot of the people that ended up modding for like unreal ended up getting hired by Epic Games back in the day to work on future unreal tournaments. Yeah, you know, it's like how Gears of War and and other shit was born, you know, that they fully embraced. I was like, Oh my God, this is great. And I'm real tournament would do. They did it for a tournament in 1999 and in 2004.
00:45:21
Speaker
ah for Unreal Tournament 2004, they took like the biggest mods um that content, I would say content creators, but...
00:45:31
Speaker
That wasn't really an expression back then, you know i mean but like modders had made um and packaged it all together in what was known as the bonus packs, the unreal bonus packs on CD and then shipped it to stores in the game of the year edition. It was awesome. It was incredible. And I don't think I've ever seen any other ah game or company really do that anymore. And it's sad because I thought that was amazing. you know You get it. You did. ah I guess on a positive note, you're totally right that it's a shame we don't see ah as much ah doom. I think had the ah was it master levels of doom zi probably knows any Doom fan knows there was like at least one or two commercial Doom copies with an awesome subtitle that was actually just like a compendium of user created community levels. I guess you
00:46:19
Speaker
you could look to ah the the positive spin I put on that as it did start to, after that, become more common to have people who were like, they made it big with a mod and then they got like a standalone release of the mod. They have defeat, right? Counter strike. You know, some of those just got straight up bought by Valve and then they got put out there. I'm sure there's other good examples too. There's of course the, as you're saying, like you're already saying people get hired to work on it. But I mean, there is also at least this, that kind of phenomenon.
00:46:48
Speaker
I don't know how often that happens now though, so it definitely shifted away. Yeah. I want to say one thing about that is there's an amazing game called Alien Swarm.
00:46:59
Speaker
There's two versions of Steam. There's the original Alien Swarm. And then there's Alien Swarm Reactive Drop, which is kind of the re-release kind of version of it. um Alien Swarm started as a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004, which was included in the bonus pack for the Game of the Year edition of Unreal Tournament 2004. And then those guys that made Alien Swarm were hired by Valve to make it a standalone game in the future. Alien Swarm is so good. It's so good.
00:47:29
Speaker
but Killing Floor is is another example, trying to yeah remove myself from from Valve for a second. like There are other examples of other students doing it. Killing Floor was a UT 2004 mod, I think, and then it got turned into a standalone. yeah so like it it had like That that ah phenomenon is good, but you're you're totally right, Jay. Like there's there's definitely a leeriness. I think the good news is it depends on the studio. I i know a lot about like taxpayer community. Like you look at the ARMA, obviously they hugely embrace their modern community. It's like, it's super important to them. And it's probably very important to their business, right? Like I think there's a reason why we haven't seen like Reforger obviously exists now, but like ARMA 3 was all we had for God, like ah almost a decade as far as like ARMA fans.
00:48:16
Speaker
And they, they like the the Prairie Fire DLC, that was all community made. The ah the other one, a Western Sahara, like there's other DLCs. So like there's still good examples of the studios looking and saying, like okay, we're gonna grab you and do that. Then there's the opposite. Then there's people that are, and it's a shame Tina's not here, because she could speak to her from the AAA perspective. yeah where they ah It's about protecting your IP, I guess. It's it's it's a lot of things, but go ahead, Jay. It's also about... i because I always like to try and think of it from a perspective of I don't like to demonize one one side or like, oh, publishers who ban mods are all bad and stuff like that because I can see. So let's look at Grand Theft Auto for an example. um One, that's a multiplayer experience um that ah people pay real money to to acquire items inside um for good or for worse.
00:49:08
Speaker
and um someone can mod their game to effectively cheat in a way but also like alter their game files and I can see take two's perspective on wanting to just blanket ban mods in GTA Online because
00:49:28
Speaker
kids shouldn't be playing it, but a lot of children play GTA online and you could mod something in, have something, uh, you know, appear on their machine that is, you know, wildly inappropriate or, you know, harass certain players and stuff like that. Um, but I also think some of the best mods are for multiplayer games where you can share in that experience and you can do stuff with your friends and and stuff like that. Um, like RL craft being, you know, the premier example.
Earning Through Modding
00:49:54
Speaker
I think it's yeah or go ahead yeah sorry no no i'm i'm all good yeah it's a subtle and difficult ah issue. Like it's not, you're right. It's not all black and white. It's not just like, oh, the suits are trying to suppress creativity for the money. It's not that simple. Nothing in life is. ah so There's a degree of that for sure. Yes. There's definitely a degree of that. ah I think it's born out of that extreme degree. I think is born out of ignorance, like, Oh, whoa, there's these people like using our, our platform and our name. and Like we can't control what they're doing. That's not good. Like what if they do something that reflects poorly on us and they think it's our game. Well, tell a lawyer to send them an email. Like we have to. So I kind of like,
00:50:39
Speaker
I understand like where it comes from in my experience. What I just described, like i've I won't be specific. but like i've I've been a part of those kinds of situations or conversations where I've heard about them for other people. like That's like not too far off, I would say, from one potential way that that happens. But at the same time, ah yeah there's There's a way to solve that. it's I could kind of preach from from my soapbox or whatever, but and of course it would be biased. But I feel like there's a way to to make it work. You could have a platform for it. You could control the platform and make sure there's no inappropriate content.
00:51:18
Speaker
You could empower your community to control the platform. You could make clear that the modding experiences are not associated with you. While I get the concerns, I think the fact that so many studios do embrace modding, and that there's so much content that's created from it, even just like goofy shit like Resident Evil, the modder replace, it's lol, it's Thomas Tank Engine, like that kind of stuff. like It just shows that there's like a lot of value to it, and and I do wonder if, like Uh, the tables are turning a little bit and people are a little more open to it. That being said, like, I don't know how long it's going to be until we see like, uh, I don't know, like a full suite of like, uh, work with the a RE engine, you know, like imagine getting access to that editor and making custom resident evil for remaster or not remaster, remake, uh, maps. That'd be wild. And that's like, obviously there's a lot of work that the team would have to do there. It's not that simple, but I see incredible value to it. And I think it would be awesome. And I think, um,
00:52:15
Speaker
it's ah There's ways to allow for modern content without having these sensitive issues come up. Yeah, I think um I think that. Anybody in the right mind knows that the developers that made the game, they're not responsible for the people that make mods or anything like weird or controversial or like obvious. I don't you know what I mean. We're smart enough to know like that's not the developer's fault or even their responsibility in in my opinion. You know, so it's it is interesting to see a lot of the
00:52:49
Speaker
um Like what people are talking about like Nintendo and Capcom try to like hush these ah people making their mods and stuff and some of them are just like like there was the the Wasn't there like a Mario kind of like? remake thing an Unreal Engine that got shut down or something because Nintendo was like wait, this is our IP you can't do that like that wasn't like it was yeah a whole project and they were kind of being flat about it, but you know, I mean, yeah, so it's it's a tough one cuz like I um I was having this thought where you're describing that Mikey in the sense of, so I'm going to speak about this from a World of Warcraft perspective because I'm a big WoW player, but in WoW, since its inception has had add-ons that drastically improve the user experience, um be that with its UI or its interaction with bosses or um you know some of its visuals and stuff like that.
00:53:38
Speaker
And I want to spin that into also the question for Minecraft, Shaboxie.
Minecraft's Modding Community Impact
00:53:43
Speaker
Do you feel that Minecraft would have seen the the success it had and the longevity of that if mods didn't exist? Because I think mods in Minecraft is a huge, huge fact for why that game has seen the longevity it has.
00:54:02
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I do not think Minecraft would have been as popular or be as popular rather as it is without um without the modding scene. yeah The modding scene is keeping Unreal Tournament alive on life support right now. You know, it's 25 years old that game. Yeah. um And the only reason it's alive is because of mods. I mean, there are still servers, you know, for Unreal Tournament and every single one has mods. There isn't a single one that's like running just Vanilla a real tournament, you know, so I think absolutely. yeah Yeah, it's definitely helped with the I didn't I'd agree I'd agree I it's worth saying to me in the same breath though that like Minecraft would still be the cultural phenomenon that it was and the incredible success without mods But wow the modding is like clearly a ah good idea and that's what that's what pees me both as a gamer as a developer is like you um, I it's not that easy. I've been on the other side where I go like, I know the modders want this, but we only have so many hours in a day. We can't support, we can't provide access to this, this, and this, but it, but it peeves me, I guess, or disappoints me at least that ah there's there's a lack of wanting to embrace the modded content or support it. ah Even just from a pure, be like purely cynical and selfish about it. Unlike these selfless modders, as you say, Jay, like in a business sense, like people are making content for your game for free.
00:55:27
Speaker
was yeah community engaged in your game. Like, and if you're thinking businessmen, like money, money, money, if you've monetized your project, which most of games have modders are effectively just keeping your community happy and healthy and alive and circulating. It's like,
00:55:48
Speaker
And I know most of it's good, right? Yeah. And again, i know like I know personally from the work that I've done, I know just as a person who understands there's there's another side to these great endeavors ah and any work thing that requires money and time and teams and coordination to do, like I get it. It's more subtle than that. But at the end of the day, I don't i i mostly don't get it.
00:56:11
Speaker
i There's a part that I get but I mostly don't get it and the best way I could chalk it up as far as the triple A's and stuff is I don't know like you you you have a ah protectiveness that you have just like a leeriness and ah the brand is so important and identity of your your game and your projects like it's just so it's so um ah dangerous. Also, ah sometimes, this is another thing that I feel like I experienced, but I wish Tina were here, I'd ask her about it. There's a lot of instances where like it might be a lawyer's job to to look out for stuff and to do the outreach required, like, oh, sorry, you can't use that. And those things really blow up.
00:56:53
Speaker
But that can be from misunderstanding internally. Like a lawyer might reach out and say like, Hey, you can't do that. Where the team, if they could have talked to them, could have been like, no, that's that we're actually okay with that. Yeah. That too is another potential situation. I could see. Yeah. Because everybody's trying to do their job the best way possible. Right. And it's your job to protect an IP. But what's protections like, I believe that mistakes like that can happen too. And again, it's not all, it's not all malice. It's not all suits rubbing their fucking palms together is my point.
00:57:24
Speaker
yeah yeah I think there's I wonder if there's like a bit of I imagine a part of it could be the fear of like say a mod project comes out it gets bigger than the actual game itself and now your games associated with that and maybe your view of the game and your IP doesn't align with whatever they're doing you know like I'm smiling knowingly is why I can't go into it. I, yeah, I've been in conversations where it's like, but what if people like that more than the main thing? And I would reply good. Yeah. i Inherently. I don't think they stuck out to buy the game you made a basis for, you know, uh, people to to take that and run with. And and I think you like,
00:58:04
Speaker
like all there's there's an expression of like all like nothing is original anymore you know kind of like everything we make today is some kind of derivative of something that's come before we're all standing on the shoulders of giants is the the one I like. And I think that's inherently like, that's really cool. I think that's good that we're able to take inspiration from whatever it is and, and have that grow into something else and something that is, is a unique in a way or or whatever, you know, like it's cool. So, but that's how I view it. It's, it's also an idea of like thinking of it suit wise,
00:58:41
Speaker
Oh, if the thing gets super popular and that's why people are coming here, we can't monetize that thing. Like, and right that we're going to lose money from that. And like, we've seen devs attempting to monetize, uh, you know, the, the goodwill of mods for, for years, like Bethesda famously with, um, I think what, what did it start full out?
00:59:02
Speaker
Um, no, I thought it was oblivion or Skyrim even. No, not oblivion. That's the, that was modernization of the horse armor. That was one of the original DLC stuff. Didn't they do a thing where they had a storefront for mods yeah and you could pay a certain amount of money and ah i don't remember came but go to the right creator and some of it wouldn't, um, and like,
00:59:27
Speaker
in a utopia, I can see that being a good thing, right? Like, but I think a lot of the money was skewed towards Bethesda than it was the mod creators. Um, like, yeah. Okay. Bethesda skimming a bit off the top, like a 5% or 10%. Okay. I can see that. And like 8%. So I'm going to the mod creators, but I think it was the complete other way and that tanked like that didn't go anywhere. And I think why is it with with mods like do you think there's a world where people are willing to to pay ah like a decent amount of money so people can do this? Like how do you monetize this so you guys can keep doing it? Is it free patron and means like that?
01:00:10
Speaker
Um, I think that's one way I do see modders that throw out their Patreon and stuff. Uh, you know, which is totally fine. I think there's rules against like Minecraft has some kind of like ULA stuff and whatever that you can't like directly sell mods. Yeah. Um, you know, because it's derivative of their work and, you know, okay. Sure. I think, I think there's an argument to be made that modders who do a lot of work should get paid. Um, but I think.
01:00:41
Speaker
it's It is it is a very interesting kind of like cultural phenomenon of mods have always just kind of been this thing that's like, oh, it's just for fun. It's free. Here you go. You know, yeah even if it is a lot of work, um the way um RL craft makes any money at all is is through, like I said, Curseforge downloads whenever our aircraft gets downloaded. And then when our craft gets downloaded, every mod that it includes gets downloaded, all those modders get, ah you know, a bit of revenue from that download. um And then on top of that sponsors, right, so we have ah i'm not trying to sell out here, but we have the Visect hosting sponsor, right? um That's the one thing that ah curse forage and I think
01:01:22
Speaker
um You know Minecraft allows is that kind of sponsorship where bisect hosting is ah is a server hosting company, right? Yeah, and you know, we just in the description on our oral prep page slap on the link and say, you know if you want a server here you go and that's Really where any of the money comes from is just that your sponsorships or or you know download revenue donations patreon. Yeah, etc. So You guys are feeding each other, right? Like there's only a benefit for both of you, like the modders and the the server hosting company and Minecraft in general, like you're all, you're part of an ecosystem. And I think games.
01:01:57
Speaker
game devs and publishers should encourage that ecosystem to to be created and to and like feed it rather than trying to stamp it out and be like, no, you must play vanilla. Fucking young is point is that. Yeah, that rock marketplace yeah is ah is a really good example. Yeah, I don't know much about it, um so I can't speak to it. um But yeah, I know I had a.
01:02:20
Speaker
I had a Microsoft employee reach out to me ah to interview me about RLcraft and modding and what kind of made modding kind of accessible, I guess, because they were looking at expanding the marketplace stuff, which they they started to do now. It's not just um it's just not it's not just maps anymore that you can make with bedrock edition. But now there's the whole add on thing, which is essentially mods that like like Java Minecraft has. I don't remember how it works exactly. But yeah, so like they they are starting to do things like that. And you can sell your stuff right on the bedrock marketplace. And you know, I think that's all good and dandy. Right. So
01:02:57
Speaker
Yeah, and I think Young's raising a good point also when bringing up Fortnite and Roblox where it's like, um I feel like I was always a little bit surprised to backlash that that oblivion, not oblivion, that Skyrim, I think monetized modding. Pretty sure it was Skyrim got because it felt tree like the I do think that the creation club okay I do think that there's like the principle there is okay like it it could be optional I guess you might remove a little bit of magic ah I think you're right Jay the backlash was mostly about the the cuts didn't make sense
01:03:35
Speaker
uh but even then like i could be wrong but guess what valve takes 30 like it's the cuts are big cuts big chunks are are kind of normal i don't remember what they were taking but like i i feel like we might have to be realistic about that because yeah any game is digitally distributed the storefronts taking a cut It's not that. But consumers don't think about that, right? like They don't. Exactly. yeah so But with the mods, it feels very personal. like I feel like when Bethesda are taking 40% or whatever the percentage was from a mod sale, I felt like they were taking that from Jibakusi, someone I know and I want to support. rather than i like I didn't fucking want to support Bethesda. Fuck you. I want to support these mod makers. like
01:04:25
Speaker
Someone in the chat is saying, cause I admit some ignorance. Like I don't remember exactly the backlight. I remember I was a community manager at the time and they posted in the chat and they're like, will Insurgency be asking for money for mods? What are you doing about this? And we were like, holy shit, like where'd this come from? And somebody in the chat said, yeah. What Huma just said, that makes a lot of sense. Okay. Right. They made no effort to confirm, for people who are listening and can't see chat, Bethesda made no effort to confirm ownership of content before it was posted. Several high profile mods of the content stolen and reposted.
01:04:54
Speaker
Yeah, well, it's definitely a problem for sure. Yeah. So like maybe it was an execution thing. Maybe it was a numbers thing. But regardless of what it was, as Young brought up, ah it's changing now. Like you can make money off UGC for sure now, if only for the way Shavoxie was described. ah Sponsorships, Patreon, all those options. And Curseverse gives us a platform, right, for the the download revenue. I imagine they I don't know exactly
01:05:25
Speaker
Funny would know, I don't know how Curseforge itself gets paid. I mean, I think they run ads and stuff. I know they have ads. my ads is like my guess it's usually yeah I believe they run ads. I get all my World of Warcraft add-ons from them. Yeah, ah but it's it's very nice to have Curseforge as a platform to give us like the download revenue and and stuff, you know. Yeah. um And speaking of, that or sorry, go ahead. yeah um I'm done, I'm done.
01:05:49
Speaker
ah Speaking of that, like to to gush a little more about things that are meaningful to me about modding, isn't it so nice to finally have pla- I sound like I do it. Eric just brought up a picture of Curse Forge in their banner or something. I sound like we're doing a sponsorship. I have no association with Curse Forge at all. But it's so nice that it's it's so nice to...
01:06:11
Speaker
um Have like ways now when you want to download a mod you could do a prepackaged thing or you have mod managers for games like fallout or whatever like God cuz it did not used Shavoxie and I know like it was not that simple there was a lot of a file extraction a lot of a lot of cursed readmes a lot of a lot of Figuring it out. You've made some cursed readmes. I Did I I did I um What was it your fault? Like I couldn't get the fucking thing to run. I reached out to you. I DM'd you. I'm like, Hey man, everybody in your Discord was like, yeah that's how we met. Yeah. Everybody in your Discord was like, Oh, we love our all craft. I'm like, excuse me. This unreal mod that you made from eight years ago. Could, could you please help me? And you like looked from up there on your, on your creator's throne. and You were like, who is this one who speaks to me? And you, you ah DM me back and we tried to get it done. I never did. Like I couldn't get it to work. There you go. Perfect. Good reaction time, too. Anyway, that's that's um yeah. the The point I'm making is you young whippersnappers have it a lot better and better than we used to. It used to be a real pain in the ass and it's still a pain in my ass when I go to play. Like what's that? I remember searchie days early on in World of Warcraft days where I would have to manually install. I mean, this isn't a huge thing, but like as a
01:07:39
Speaker
you know, a 15-year-old manually installing add-ons and mods and stuff into my WoW was a huge deal and was very difficult for me to learn. um But now I can be like, oh, there's a patch out, load up Curseforge desktop, and just click a button to update all of my mods. And it goes... Done. And I just jump back in the game. Like, it's so good. I don't know if they do sponsorships. Hey, Curseforge, if you watch this, sponsor design, of i i'm I'm down. And dev heads, too. And dev heads, yeah. They usually come in a combo package.
01:08:12
Speaker
Right. And I was going to say something else. Oh, yeah. And there's other games, too. Right. Like fucking I'm thinking of tactical shooters immediately, of course, but like ready or not insurgency like ah there there's there's integration right now. You could boot up a game and you can go straight to the mods part of the main menu right under options and click subscribe and you're good or whatever. There's the Steam Workshop, of course. Huge boot in there. There's Mod dot.io. Big props to Mod dot.io.
01:08:41
Speaker
ah But yeah, back in the day, not not to speak ill of ModDB, a precious place. ah that that's all That's all still great, but... I still have my stuff in there. Oh, you do? Yeah, RLCoup's on ModDB. RLCoup, I remember that for sure. Is RLCraft or just...? ah Not RLCraft, no. Some of the work I helped to do to get the Duke Nukem Forever 2001 project rebooted... is You contributed to that? Oh, yeah. I did voice acting for them.
01:09:11
Speaker
um okay I also I mean, I made a whole we should explain what maybe we should explain what that is um do yeah Forever came out in 2011. It was terrible. There was the original trailer from 2001 that was like whoa This looks really good the 2001 build of dude. Newcomb forever which ran on the first unreal engine got leaked and Modders went crazy. I'm in a couple discords for it. There's a revival project now where they're taking a what got leaked and and finishing it, because it was on it was an unfinished game. um And I was there like from the start, helping kind of like, I don't want to say ah I was a pioneer. you know But essentially, I did help get those guys started, especially with like how to even use the Unreal Editor. I ended up making a huge tutorial video for them. um I made tons of posts about you know how to do this, that, and the other, because I was so familiar with the Unreal Engine.
01:10:06
Speaker
um I dove into a lot of the assets and was like, oh, I figured out how to fix the, you know, flamethrower particle effect, the dumb glitch that it was, you know, yeah. So this is what I love about modding is like all all video games are magic. And the way they work is like, it's just like.
01:10:26
Speaker
It's crazy that any video game ever gets released and there's a credible amount of effort and there's a lot of esoteric knowledge and all these different roles. But nowhere is that more concentrated and more and more intense and more like obscure than like modding because yeah you go to mod make this guy like, oh, we have to make ah Duke Duke forever again. was but no Yeah, Eric's got the video. Thank you. Eric is always pulling up videos and shit ah real fast But like nowhere where is this a better example than like the this game and the money community where it's like wait We don't nobody knows how to do anything in unreal one anymore Except for that wizard on the hill in his back who's still studying the scroll
01:11:08
Speaker
There's so few, and you're there you are reading your runes and you someone knocks on your door and you're like, yes, I'll help you. And but to me, it's um you know it's it's like a testament to ah the the preciousness of lost knowledge. I don't know, something like that.
01:11:22
Speaker
Yeah, I love personal it's so fun. Yeah, I don't know they still used a lot of the same terminology right like actors I don't think they had blueprints back then but like it's yeah, it was you script. Yes. ah There was no blueprints um But like oh my god, I don't think the light actor changed for a long time the light when whenever you place a light in the engine it was like this the lowest resolution torch it wasn't even a light bulb it was the torch back and you know yeah triggers key points pawns scripted pawn you know I have all these variables like memorize in my brain
01:11:59
Speaker
Um, yeah, did Duke Nukem Forever stuff. So, so cool. Uh, the first part I think is released on ModDB and I am my, my voice. Uh, I'm the voice actor for the, the intro, like the very first level when the the talk show, I'm the talk show host is interviewing Duke Nukem. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Did you fawn over Duke?
01:12:25
Speaker
Are you like, wow, Duke Nukem, you're incredible. What's your character like? It's something like that. I don't remember the exact lines. of I'd have to go back. It's been a while now. but Those guys are going ham. It's great. They did actually reach out to me recently saying they may need some more voice stuff um in the future. So yeah. Cool. Nice. That's awesome.
Improvised Game Pitch Segment
01:12:45
Speaker
They're basically gushing over Duke in the beginning. It's great.
01:12:50
Speaker
Eric, do you have, you can message in the, in the thing. Um, do you have Tina's, Tina's pitch picture? I might need to explain this to Shabaksi. Um, so no worries. Um, I can explain it. So it's all good for Shabaksi and all the viewers who do not know. Uh, usually, usually we have our wonderful co-host Tina here.
01:13:13
Speaker
who at the end of each of our episodes um for the last little bit presents us with an image that we then have to improv come up with a game pitch based on that image. um And they these images are usually um batshit insane. um And she has ah like a one sentence you know descriptor of what the image is and stuff like that. So um Eric's working on getting that image ready. um So just to remind, um Thank you, Eric, for sending that to me. um
01:13:47
Speaker
For everyone in chat who's watching, if you do enjoy, you know, watching dev heads or any content here at second wind, we are supported by, uh, you are basically 95% of our funding is all free. Patreons. So if you do enjoy our content, feel free to jump over there as little as $1 a month can literally feed Ludo. You can see down there who's sulking in the bed. So if you want to feed Ludo, get on there. So yes, Eric, i'm ask a question to for Shavoxie about RL craft. Yeah. We're just going to ask when 2.10 is getting released. And I don't have the answer to that. but So if you guys want to ask for the donations first, we'll ask when the next batch is. Um, yeah, we can read donations. We can read donations first, or we
Creating Educational Sims Mod
01:14:33
Speaker
can wait for more show backseat questions. You guys have a whatever questions we'll read those out afterwards, after we've done our our little pitch.
01:14:41
Speaker
Um, so get those in August is supporting the show and feed in my dog. So, right. So here's the image and Tina's left us a little message, which says the Sims mod that educates people on what diseases you can catch. Since as a mom, I'm always guessing what my kids have until I take them to the hospital. So this is a little bit topical. Not only is this a mod, but Tina is away caring for her.
01:15:09
Speaker
are ah young children who have unknown diseases, apparently so. Wow, how relevant. So yeah, this is a mod for a Sims mod that educates people on diseases. So how how are we going to frame this? How are we going to do this gameplay wise? I immediately get Project Zomboid vibes just from the start. Oh, yeah. Yeah, totally. So what aspects of Project Zomboid are we going to toy with?
01:15:36
Speaker
ah If it's if it's going to be a mod about like diseases, it'd be OK. I've been I've been getting back in the zombie game, so that's why i'm I'm kind of thinking about that. What if we have it's not just the zombie disease, but you have variants of it that could be.
01:15:56
Speaker
it doesn't just turn you into a zombie, it could turn you into ah a zombie with tentacles coming out of your face, it could be a different variant, it could be a flying, you know I don't know, I'm already just thinking, like it would be funny if this took a zombie approach where it was like, which type of zombie disease or other you know plague is this going to? right They all have like specific symptoms and it's your job to basically diagnose these zombie children and quarantine them in an appropriate manner. Maybe find the right cure and you have to go out and find the exact specific ingredients and try not to get killed by all the other zombies. Yeah, some curables, you have to quarantine and you have to do what you need to. What are you feeling, Mikey? What are we going to add to this disease centric Sims mod?
01:16:43
Speaker
but First question I feel like I have to ask is, how do we feel about zombie children in the game? Is that like a sensitivity issue? We're okay with that? Okay. It's a mod. Welcome. Oh, it's just a mod. We're not subject. It's a mod. We can, we can be shooting kids. We can be, we can be disease and kids. It's funny. No more room in hell. One had zombie children. No more room in hell. I got you buddy. Has zombie children and they they were ter more terrifying than normal zombies because they were fast.
01:17:08
Speaker
You know, and small, hard to shoot. Yeah, yeah no more room than hell had already did. Like the the zombie totem thing. yeah in In my head, I have this image of like. leading into the educational side of ah things here. So like, if I'm understanding right, the the mod was purposely made of the Sims from an educational perspective, right? And then they just list out. I went in the wrong direction then completely. We all just trust gameplay in theirs. Yeah. and And the idea is like you ah you add all these infectious diseases and and shit, right? Like you it's it's real world stuff and and evaluation help, I guess that's the idea.
01:17:49
Speaker
Yeah, Tina is specifically looking at it being an educational um thing. I so should have actually when you said the zombie outbreak, I imagined it as. It starts as teen as, you know, oh, the the kids come to the doctors and you have to diagnose them with the chicken pox or, you know, they have the flow or, you know, um, whatever creative names doctors come up with the bullshit and then slowly becomes a zombie game in the sense of you don't you download the model and you don't know it's a zombie game, but it's but is like a subtle. that Yeah.
01:18:22
Speaker
What's that fucking game you guys? Um, this is like a little bit of a spoiler. Is it like Doki Doki literature club? Yeah, I know what you're talking about. There's spoilers here. You don't think it's a horror game, but then suddenly out of nowhere. That's what I imagine. So like there's the doctor in the office like, Oh, you have the flu. Uh, take this and drink water. Bye-bye. And you're driving home and you're like,
01:18:45
Speaker
Oh, I feel a little sick. I don't know what's going on. And then you you wake up and you're, a ah I don't know, like either you yourself or your you infect your wife. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It gets, it gets real, real, real fast. It's what I'm imagining. Well, cause when you start to say like educational stuff, I was like, Oh, this could be a cool like learning tool, maybe for doctors to, or are to be doctors, rather not actual doctors or yeah all this, but to be able to identify symptoms,
01:19:12
Speaker
And stuff. Cause that's the thing, being able to know exactly what symptoms relate to what kind of thing you're supposed to be diagnosing. on it you know Yeah. Those things like exist too. Like there's a bunch of, yeah, good they do yeah sure. The, um, Tina, Tina said that she wanted to use her, her kid as an example. Uh, and there was a second photo request, um, which was a photo of a kid with green pus coming out of his eyes. Cause that's what's happening to Tina's child. but But Eric fears will be demonetized for putting that on screen. So we're not going to do that.
01:19:42
Speaker
Send it to me. I want I want to see it. Let me have a private reaction to it. i My question here is, who do who do you play as? Are you playing as as a doctor or are you playing as a ah child or a parent? or the doctor doing trying yeah i'd think guy for as much yeah I think to have the Doki Doki inspired twist, you need to be a doctor and needs to start out like very not what's the word I'm looking for, very clinical, very like um Very dry. It's very dry. Happy, happy, happy, happy doctor. Yeah. Thank you, doctor. You walk away and then I don't know like what causes the twist. Maybe maybe people.
01:20:26
Speaker
like ah you go home and you're like, wait, why am I playing the doctor at home? And there's like stuff on the news and like strange biting attacks in the city or something like that. You're like, oh, whatever. I'm going to work. I like the delivery of the twist happening over the course of seeing a kid.
01:20:44
Speaker
throughout its treatment of a completely different disease, in the sense of like, you have the flu, go home and rest for two weeks, a couple of days worth of gameplay come back, the kid comes back with worse symptoms. Oh, you don't have the flu, you must have, you know, this, this worst disease, um, will treat you here. And then it progressively gets worse. It's like this kid, you keep treating day by day and it just gets worse and worse and worse.
01:21:07
Speaker
Maybe an overarching story element to this is why is it only affecting kids? You know what I mean? It's only kids getting infected? Oh my god. If that's the topic, right, right. So it's like, what's what's going on here? yeah know That could be like a story arc kind of thing, right? Yeah, it's metal as well. like that That gets into the zombie apocalypse kind of.
01:21:26
Speaker
um mindset of, Oh, no. Yeah. Half of the population is safe because it's only affecting children, but our entire race is going to get wiped out because we can't have kids because they will just turn. yeah It's it's fun to imagine all this. I just realized something for for what I was saying about like, Oh, this narrative where you go, everybody's speaking in Simlish, right?
Gameplay Mechanics and Narrative
01:21:52
Speaker
So you can't really like understand people. So we have to have this ah dark tone. There's a stone that turns dark and then. Waba Waba Raza like that that. They're talking with the it's called. simple show Yeah, the zombies will sound to cohere. Maybe the zombies can talk to the humans because zombies sounds just like Simlish. It just starts as like one or two words that are just random sounds. You don't understand. You're like, what? What what did you say? I understood that yeah God. Yeah. Okay. So mechanically getting down to brass tacks sort of mechanics, we, we kind of understand the narrative through line of, you know, we're going to slowly discover the zombie apocalypse through the, you know, the framing of a singular child that then leads into more gameplay and into a zombie game in a way. But the actual diagnosing of the kids and the stuff like that is this kind of like, um, look at a kid, see symptoms cross reference with.
01:22:47
Speaker
a list of diseases and it's your job to select the correct one kind of like a papers please kind of thing right yeah because again it it could still be kind of like a you have to you know discover all the symptoms and then reference that with you know well it yeah this this oh but it has this one so it can't be this okay then you know kind of like yeah you know yeah i agree but How are we going to change the, like, how does, so I can see how we're going to deliver the narrative, how you're going to engage with gameplay in that first section. But are we going to have it? So ah like he's now, number two um ah was um yeah chapter two. Are we going to see a gameplay shift? What does the game become after we've had the reveal of, Oh shit, it's actually a zombie game. That's a good zombie. That's good zombie acting, dude.
01:23:37
Speaker
Thank you. How'd you do that? Oh, that was great. I just switched it up. I got into care. I thought about, well, what's my motivation? I want brains. I want flesh. Yeah.
01:23:50
Speaker
just this was This was inspired by Conker's Bad Fur Day. when you You guys play that when you bust into the fucking you're you're in the the war section and you find the two teddies who are supposed to be like evil evil bad guy teddies and they're having a conversation about how violent video games can be very destructive or something like that.
01:24:12
Speaker
What if you want to give this game to two intelligent people? Yeah, dude, it's I played it like I just repeat it actually I was i surprised I haven't played it myself, but I've i've seen plenty of footage and all the wild stuff. Watched my dad play it. Oh really? I was younger. That's funny. Sorry, what was the question? I got sidetracked.
01:24:32
Speaker
I was very young. Yeah, sorry. No, no. So gameplay shift, chapter two, as you say, Shavar, what are we what are we seeing? Is there a gameplay shift or is it still about diseases? Is it now about finding a cure? Like I will we i would say you have like the chapter two would be like the. I don't know. You'd have to be subtle, kind of like where it's it's sort of started to introduce like, wait a minute, something else is going on here. I'm not sure how exactly thinking about it, like it would tie into what you're diagnosing.
01:25:02
Speaker
But maybe you start to yeah, like there's there's new unknown symptoms that maybe don't reference with anything that leads into kind of like.
Game Character Evolution
01:25:10
Speaker
the zombie outbreak and then you're kind of discovering, trying to figure out the source of it and then also the cure. Yeah. You know, something like that. I wouldn't know. Yeah. I'm trying to think of like details of how it could work, but that's that's something where you'd have to like sit down because like there's two kind of ways we can go. We can go with keep the doctor in the hotel, not the hotel, law the the hospital, not hotel.
01:25:32
Speaker
um keep them there but slightly shift the gameplay to be more about more diagnosing and then eventually finding a cure um or we can completely flip it on the head and have the game completely change in chapter two of like the zombie outbreak has just gone crazy and now it is about Uh, survival or something like shooter. Yeah. Yeah. It does. It's a top first person mode to, you know, yeah completely changes like the whole game to a first person Sims game. but there's a lot of There's a lot of fun dialogue opportunities there as far as like a boomer shooter protagonist, but he's a huge ripped doctor. he something Yeah. He's he's like. all throughout all throughout chapter one he's wearing the white coat right this is a more classy he's not in scrubs it's like a more classic doctor look he's like oh hello being nice to the kids and he's got this suspiciously badass thick mustache but we still don't know if if he is badass because we can't see his rippling arms so but then when when shit goes down he just
01:26:38
Speaker
Eric just put a picture of a hot doctor. There's a character in um Sea of Stars ah who is like very weedy looking, but every time they rip off their shirt, they become like three times as big and they're like super buff. Like to imagine that's what this doctor's like. They like doing all their diagnosing in a little coat, but when she gets real and that zombie kid busts in, they rip that coat off and they become massive. Yes. Perfect. Shotguns like all holstered up on their chest.
01:27:08
Speaker
I like the idea of a look. Now we're doing character design. We got to think about branding. We got to think about marketing. So it's a white lab coat. He's fucking jacked and you can't see it, but he rips the sleeves off. So it's just all arms. He's a big hunking hunk. And, uh, you know, it's boomer shooter style weapons and stuff. Oh, but here, here's a fun question. What's the melee weapon? Because the melee weapon has to be somatic to being a doctor and then the rest are conventional weapons. It's a stethoscope, but you use it like nunchucks.
01:27:39
Speaker
Okay, I'm down. i he Yeah, but just that's perfect. See chapter three is what? He like you're saying that every time he rips off it like he just like gets bigger. Well, chapter three. Now he rips off the coat and his arms transform into just actual gun barrels. It turns out he was a robot all along. you know Oh, my God. and That's why he's a ship. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. How else is he immune? ah Yeah. Yeah. and You get better, right? or just Yeah.
01:28:09
Speaker
Yeah. What the hell? Why haven't I turned? Yeah. He learns and he's like, Oh, my whole life is a lie. is' shit like There's a lie shooting into the sky. Straight Shyamalan twist. Yeah. Yeah. I like what you're describing Jay. Well, I think it's let's lean in, right? Like, uh, if we're going to be, uh, not subversive, I guess we're gonna have a twist.
01:28:35
Speaker
That's what's good. That's why I'm saying I like chapter two's gameplay totally turning. It's a, this is a very, this is the the scope is getting insane, but but it's a great idea. It's a mod. We can spend as long as its we want. There you go. There you go. Uh, but as we know with modders, we might give up. That's me doing my stethoscope non-chucks. Sorry.
01:28:59
Speaker
That is a robot with a stethoscope. Very good find, Eric. Oh wait, Eric points out something good. We're forgetting the kids. Where is the education? Well, in the first chapter, you learn about... You learn about, you know, disease, infection, whatever, ah and even a little bit of diagnosis. I guess in chapter two, we have to teach people about weapon handling. if yes sir So it's a boomer shooter with realistic weapon mechanics. I feel like he like just chapter three is about letting go of your humanity because you realize you're a robot and also letting go of the ones you love because you have to kill a lot of kids. Jesus.
01:29:39
Speaker
like dark ah Well, it's um, well, I think I would put an optimistic spin on it where there's the temptation There we only this is bad storytelling because we're only learning about this arc like way to the second chapter yeah like Yeah, there's some sort of touches like hey doctor. Oh, we don't have a name.
01:29:59
Speaker
We need the name that implies that they're a robotic, but it's... You wouldn't know until you once played again, right? It's like a hint for... It's like a treat if you go back and play again. um What's a robotic name that doesn't sound robotic, you know? That also sounds medical. It has to be doctor... Doctor... Doctor, Shiv. Doctor. He went to...
01:30:22
Speaker
I went to Mr. Roboto, I'm thinking, don't worry, Mr. Roboto. That works. I don't know why. That works. It could be a he could be a. ah Oh, wow. Eric, you have. No, I'm sick. It says I'm sure Rick Asimov. Yeah, yeah, that works. Did you find someone doing stethoscope nunchucks?
01:30:40
Speaker
My goodness, Eric, you're on point with these videos. For those who can't see, Eric has found a video of a man who is ostensibly a doctor. He's in a white coat doing stethoscope, nunchucks. And right at the end of the video or the gift, there's another guy that starts to fade in with these rad ass red tinted glasses right at the end there. Wait for it. Wait for it. It's like alin Collins. not a one my developer Hello, Kotlin.
01:31:07
Speaker
We'll be reading out those donations shortly after this, guys. So if you have any more questions, you have anything we want to read out, um chuck them in. We'll get him done. um Yeah, I want to I want to get as a Krieger. Yeah, from Archer. I want to get something that's like yeah I do think Krieger works in the sense that like I'm pretty sure that's German for warrior and like as far as the boomer shooter angle and like sounding like a sort of generic innocuous surname. That kind of works. But I feel like we have to bring in the roboticness still.
01:31:42
Speaker
Oh, like I'm trying to think of an element on the periodic table. That sound. I know it's a doctor. It's not a scientist, but like trying to think of an element on the periodic table. It sounds badass like as another languages word for steel. Yeah, like like something like that. OK. Yeah. Multilanguage peeps in the chat who are way more cultured than I am. This is out of my leg. I'm so. Yeah. with words What's a badass? What's stealing? Hold it. Polish word for steal.
01:32:12
Speaker
ah The Polish word for steel is tungsten. Eric steel in Spanish is sorry for butchering this Eric. Esero. I got to roll those R's more. um i like zeroro I don't think that's accurate. Doctor Esero sounds cool. I kind of like that. What's his first name? um what's ah what's ah What's a badass Latin American first name?
01:32:41
Speaker
yeah We see Keith, Keith, Keith,
Robotic and Dragon Elements
01:32:46
Speaker
Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith, Keith,
01:32:54
Speaker
actor carbu and antonio is a nice one atonio oh you got a little alliteration there alliteration is like yeah it's antonio yeah because you can it flows yeah i like it i liked that okay so dr antonio ascero ah who's from What? It just sounds great. It's so good. or is it I forgot. what What were we saying? We just have to think of the name. right yeah we needed the name we've got all We've got our full arc. It's a tragic ending because we don't end the game by you finding out a cure. We we end the game by you realizing you're a fucking robot and blindly firing into the sky. By the end of the game, it just has nothing to do with the original story. And there's no happy ending and you don't find a cure. There's no, you're not solving diseases anymore. It's a first person game where you shoot kids. It's an awful cliffhanger. And then, uh, so we're leaving room for a part two. Yeah, exactly. Right. Cause somebody is going to download, um, you know, a Sarah, um, gunfire shoot bang too. Right.
01:34:02
Speaker
And download that mod and play this first person Sims game and be like, wow, this is great. And somebody will come in and say, oh, did you know this is a sequel to happy, happy doctor diagnose? And you're like, what? Happy, happy doctor diagnose.
01:34:16
Speaker
Let's let's reach out to the nightmare Reaper devs and ask if we can borrow some of their art for the the boomer shooter segment because because in in that game, you're you're in ah and an asylum or something. So they got a little bit of environment art we can use for the yeah hospital or whatever. hundred percent I think if there's a chapter three, then it just gets dragons. You know, because our dragons. Okay. Yeah. It turns out they were just hibernating this whole time under the earth and then they burst out. And now it's alternate take Shavoxie robot dragon.
01:34:45
Speaker
From the robot so the the robot that comes down to tell you you're a robot. Yeah. Yeah out of the mouth, right? Oh, oh my gosh actually uh What was the mod for far cry 3 blood dragon? Holy shit. What a great great one Eric's already got a picture of a robotic dragon shooting laser at its mouth. Thank you, eric Also, eric said this and I love this one. Dr. Lucero a sero Pretty fucking good There. Yeah. Antonio could be his brother who who appears in chapter two. Well, this is the zombie plague. And it all comes back around the dragons, the robot dragons that shoot lasers out of their face were the ones they had woken up earlier, but didn't reveal themselves yet, but released released the zombie virus as a means to take over the earth.
01:35:37
Speaker
Oh my god, they're just planned. Yeah, there it is. So you can you can take down the dragons is someone who is part see now because they wrote what dragons does is Dr. Asero part dragon. Is he part dragon? Yeah, maybe maybe he was his mom was his mom a dragon.
01:35:55
Speaker
Maybe he was the anomaly supposed to help, like, no, I think I think he was built by the robot dragons in order to help infiltrate and spread the disease. Maybe maybe you've learned that you are all the apocalypse. Yeah. But a glitch in your programming flips your like morality and you're like, wait a minute.
01:36:12
Speaker
exposure to a, to a chemical in the hospital. I don't know what the chemical would be. Uh, fried, one of his synapses that was asbestos in the hospital, which yeah, uh, fries, one of your, uh, robo synapses, ands a spec the worst place to have asbestos.
Unreal Tournament Nostalgia
01:36:33
Speaker
It's it's um, yeah, it fries the synapse in your robo brain that was supposed to get activated and turn you evil But it never worked. So you're just like you think you're a normal human responding to the zombie apocalypse You you don't understand why you're badass and your arms are huge, but you know it and you you took an oath. Damn it Yeah, yeah chemical X 100% I like to wake up one day and think to myself I long to wake up one day and say, I don't know why I'm badass or my arms are huge, but I know I'm in here to take your kids to a smallpox, so I'm going to work. But I know what I must do.
01:37:09
Speaker
and
01:37:11
Speaker
There you go. There you go. Okay. See, this is, this is why I love these pictures. Cause usually they start as, Hmm, let's, let's make a game. Let's, let's do something fun. And then they just evolve into just absolute. That just doesn't really make sense. You know? No, completely. throw This is why I love an old tournament. They, they, this is going to be off the shot ramp, uh, rant here. Um, but they like, it's like unreal tournament. They took.
01:37:37
Speaker
they they They threw everything at the wall to see what would stick and everything stuck. You have a gun that instead of a shotgun, they just shoot flaming hot shards of metal. You have another one that shoots a razor blades that bounce around and cut people's heads off. you know Energy weapons is all like, oh my.
01:37:54
Speaker
You know what I'm doing? You have levels that you're just in space on a spaceship that's flying through hyperspace. You don't have a spacesuit, but who fucking cares? It's an unreal goddamn tournament. It doesn't make sense. It's bad ass. And that's like that. I just i just love. I love that. I don't know. Turn was just so off the wall with everything. Yeah. i want Yeah. I want more games like this. Honestly. Agreed. Well, with the boom, I'm glad that mos can be that right. Yeah. Yes. That's definitely true. Yeah. With the boomer shooter revival, it feels like we'll get more and more of those.
01:38:25
Speaker
Yeah. All right. I and speaking of the shooter revival.
01:38:31
Speaker
Secret level. Yeah, they they have. I am so excited. Unreal Tournament. Unreal is my favorite game of all time. I have spent the most I can't there's not even ah there isn't a counter that counts high enough to tell you how many hours I have in unreal because it's just it's infinite at this point. And it's such a.
01:38:53
Speaker
shame what happened to Unreal Tournament, because, you know, Epic kind of killed it. So to see Secret Level, the new show coming out, and it's featuring Unreal Tournament as one of the episodes, oh my god. Somebody just, yeah, there's the video. It's insane, and like the beginning of it, it has like the whole intro fly-by sequence from the game from 1998 with the same voice line, and you see the Leandry Corporation, and you see Zan Krieger, the fucking boss robot.
01:39:23
Speaker
Oh my god, and it looks like they show signs. I'm gonna get real nerdy for a second It looks like from the clips we see in the trailer that it actually is depicting Some of the robot uprising led by zan that happened in lore History in the unreal universe. There's so much potential with like unreal's universe and unreal tournament It's so sick and it's it's incredible to see but Like Halo got a TV show. It got movies. Doom got a movie. It was bad, but it was hilarious. I had the rock in it. You know, it's great. It's fun time. You know, Tomb Raider got movies. Resident Evil got too many movies. Unreal Tournament never got anything, you know? And it's like... And here we are 25 years later. It's about damn time. And I really, I really hope this is wishful thinking, but I hope it's the start of like,
01:40:14
Speaker
some kind of like but just bring on real tournament back, please. God, it might be. Do you bring this to say, man, that they might. Right. it Yeah. He was asking if you if you think it might be the case. I think it's that we said, yeah. Yeah. Like, do you think getting ah a secret levels like big budget um episode of a TV show, do you think this is potentially epic hinting at there might be more coming? i I hope to God. I really do.
01:40:44
Speaker
I think out of all the big granddaddy shooters that like set the bar, you know an Unreal Tournament invented alternate fire, for the right or Unreal did, you know where you you right-click. Right-clicking was ah not a thing. You right-click and your weapon completely changes what it fires. You had primary fire, or secondary fire. you know they They invented that. um And it's it's it' like like Unreal pioneered so much stuff, but it's just it doesn't have the reputation um or popularity that you know Doom got and Quake got. And I think it's such a shame because Unreal is so unique in its own right that um it it sucks that it it's just it never like i said it just it just kind of fell off after 2007 when UT3 came out.
01:41:33
Speaker
That was it. There's nothing. And then there was the Unreal Tournament 4 project from 2016. But then that died when Fortnite came around because they shifted their focus. And yeah I hate to say that Fortnite killed Unreal Tournament, but it kind of did. So I'm mad about that. you know But it's... ah i really I hope. I hope that i really do hope that this is maybe a hint that we could be seeing more Unreal stuff. and I think there's space for it.
01:42:01
Speaker
I think I wouldn't be really as I mean I could be this is just speculation I could easily see a scenario where somebody was just really like you really ah nostalgic for and not just nostalgic but like appreciative of unreal one and thought to themselves like oh Well, I bet Epic would like to be involved with this animation assortment that we're going to do, this this um this this show that we want to do. I'm going to reach out to them. No, of course. you know ah ah Certainly. Certainly. Absolutely. And they reached out and an Epic was like, yeah, that's a low enough lift for us and we'll throw some to the Unreal fans, but that's it. So I could see like something like that happening, but I could also see a company like Epic
01:42:44
Speaker
ah In the effort at least for prestige and out of out of pride being like you know what let's do something and let's have with unreal again and let's just under. The game series and let's have this be just the first taste so you never know you don't know these brand brands are so important right now and epic is.
01:43:05
Speaker
Really big and epic and they this is one that's powerful to them It's that it's in the name of their engine that everybody uses. I don't think I don't think you're gonna have to go. This is just a theory I don't think you're gonna have to go too much longer without seeing an unreal tournament inspired seeing aside from secret Level, it's just the way these companies think is is yeah. Yeah, that's that's my theory. I Think it's all good. Well, right. It's it's all good. I like I feel like epic lost I a lot of goodwill with ah their older fans when when they did the big shift with Fortnite and stuff, especially with like you know completely canceling Paragon and like the development of an Unreal tournament. They took down all the Unreal games as well from digital stores. You can't even buy them anymore. Yeah, and they've absolutely sacrilege. It was your flagship game and franchise. How do you do that?
01:43:57
Speaker
Yeah, no, completely agree. And I feel like they have infinite money now because of Fortnite. So I feel like they could take a portion of their team and Polish and make an absolutely gorgeous. Unreal Unreal tournament game and just have it be a, we don't need this to make a bajillion dollars. We just need to put this out to make fans happy and to like, get some of that Goodwill back.
01:44:22
Speaker
I feel like that could be on the radar. And I think that's ah just a benefit to us as fans, but also them as a company. Like, yeah, image and goodwill is a is a huge part of it. um Yeah, I think I was going to say something. I forgot my brain just farted. Sorry. Was it about you can remember it was about I don't remember what I was going to say, um particularly though I was gonna um actually looking they There was some project. It looked like they were going to try to release um an updated version of Unreal Tournament 3. It was called, like, Unreal Tournament 3 X. i don't I don't remember exactly. um But I don't see that on Steam. there was like ah There was like a leak about that or something. And I don't think that ever went anywhere.
01:45:11
Speaker
Unfortunately, is that unreal tournament three black edition maybe that because because that is on the scene Oh, no, nevermind. It's it's not I think was just there like okay. It's like their game in the year edition got um but Yeah, no, I really I really hope that we see this might introduce people as well to the unreal franchise You know because again, it's it's not ah it's not that well known it does not have the popularity that like doom and quake and everything does and yeah Um, so yeah, I, I hope, you know, yeah um priorities do shift. Priorities do shift to say the last thing of it. And then we'll go to questions. Sorry, Jay. Priorities do shift, right? And, uh, companies have to focus. And sometimes, I mean, as far as the game going off the store, I, um I imagine there was a fair reason for that.
01:46:02
Speaker
but I don't get it and I don't like it. Like it's a shame. It's a damn shame. I wish I, I wish I could ask, they will have someone from Epic on maybe they've said it publicly or maybe it's secret. I don't know. It's a damn shame, it did yeah but, but, but I'm sure they didn't do it. It's kind of like I was saying before. Right. Like it's not all suits rubbing their palms. There is probably a reason for it. ah But it's probably just not a good reason. It's probably one that they themselves are like, this sucks. This is bullshit because why there's no reason to do it. I don't know. We we yeah we did talk about this where ah people suspected it had something to do with the lawsuit that they lost with Fortnite. um There was like somebody please correct me because I don't remember the details, but it was something along the lines of like um they they got sued ah for having like
01:46:46
Speaker
ah Like chat and voice on by default and you know, like children were getting bullied and everything so they had to change their protections for that and everything and I think They lost the lawsuit and then out of people think it was out of spite that they're like, well fine We're just gonna take down our old games because those we're not updating anymore and those have voice chat and everything I don't think they'd be spiteful about it right i i don't feel like That's what some people said I needed to go fix them right like I could see going back and fixing a 20 year old game to, or like a 15 year old game to change the voice chat is an ordeal and is a huge thing. It is a lot easier for them to just take it down. That's not the correct decision. They were afraid of getting hit with a lawsuit for those older games too, which I think it's just, it's like, to me, it's just so silly. I grew up at a time where, you know, like
01:47:38
Speaker
enter any Call of Duty lobby from 2006 on it. It was shit talk, you know, like whatever. It didn't bother us back then. like But like, yeah, I don't know. Things have changed, obviously. Things have changed for sure. For sure. Right. Let's we got a few few donations that we'll go through before we wrap up. We got one from Dark Jackal, which is five dollars and says I'm rather busy and can't hang out today. But in honor of Jay's eye and lung play through, what are your favorite deep sea creatures?
01:48:08
Speaker
Deep sea creature hmm. I gotta look mine up. I I don't know the name mine is ah angel um an angel fish or something or it's like a no sorry it's um so I can't remember what the Angelfish is. my My favorite is... big glowy like That's an anglerfish. And that's angry forgot that's my favorite. They're my favorite. I love the idea of a creature and that their existence, they have evolved to have a trap as part of their body. yeah And they just sit in the dark staring at this light in front of them, just waiting. And I think that's one of the creepiest things. Oh, yeah, they're they're wild. It was great. They're so cool. Yeah.
01:48:49
Speaker
And like um spoilers for Outer Wilds, but there are space anglerfish in Outer Wilds and I think that some of the most scared I've ever been in a game is encountering them and just like fucking getting myself, it's it's terrifying. Yeah. Yeah, those are one of my, the one that comes to mind immediately.
01:49:15
Speaker
i um i because Because my initial response or to the question is like the boring one that's kind of boring, that's but hard to say no to, is the anglerfish. Because the anglerfish looks terrifying. It's evolutionarily interesting. And then there's also the blobfish, which is just like ah strange looking and then interesting. But I'm going to go with the cookie cutter shark.
01:49:39
Speaker
And I don't remember the cookie cutter shark is a small squid squaliform shark. ah And it like I don't remember exactly all the details about it. But I remember as a kid learning about fish and sharks and then finding the cookie cutter shark. And I like the name, I think. And then I remember it had some weird way of eating and had like a flat little circular mouth. I'd have to look it up. Yeah, there you go. Thank you, Eric. That's a cookie cutter shark.
01:50:07
Speaker
Yeah, and I'm pretty sure it's a deep sea creature. There's some nightmare fuel right there. You can stay down there if it wants. Yeah, they're they're pretty small, but the way they eat is here we go. They would like they'd they'd ah bite a circle into the body of like a, you know, a fucking whale or another fish and they would feed and then they leave. And then that fish would have a scar the size of a circle forever. Cookie cutter. Got it. Yeah. Also, some things like living things is not a scavenger.
01:50:37
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. I don't remember exactly the details. I'm, I'm reading about it now, but I remember as a kid being like, Whoa, cool. Cookie cutter. Haha. Like that was, that was my, uh, that's my favorite deep sea creature. yeah Okay. Cause it would cut, it would cookie cut a circle out of the month but monster, the creature and leave. Right. I spoke of like a person afraid of the deep sea. I am definitely terrified of the ocean. oceans ter It is a terrifying.
01:51:03
Speaker
Yeah, I have Phalasphobia. I can't deal with it. That shit's scary. Yeah. Ludo could tell like we're scared. She's come over. Look at that mouse. Go on, Eche, yeah. That's all good. I'm just going to read out the other one. Sussyguru, 2005 euros. Thank you. It says, my favorite modding project is the source code project for FreeSpace 1 and 2. Do you guys know anybody about that? Ooh, we talked about FreeSpace a little bit. Hot. So I have...
01:51:33
Speaker
Sorry. You're the gift right now of Antonio. an on Antonio Bandera is going like this. Leading lean back, you know the one. Yeah. That's... Go on. Is he talking about like the modding project that's like updating all the graphics and visuals to bring it to like modern day? Favorite modding project is the source code project for FreeSpace 1 and 2. So I'd assume so. You'll have a better guess than me. Okay. yeah I know of like... So, yeah. FreeSpace 1 and 2, there's a huge modding scene for them.
01:52:03
Speaker
um and they have been like revamping the engine and bringing in ah Graphical updates high-res textures, you know way better visuals and lighting and and everything particle effects um Yeah, it's been it's been a while um since they've done so I think they're still updating and everything but free space one of my All-time favorite games I think Just like hands down that has the greatest cinematic intro I have ever Experienced I'm really fond of mech warrior. I love the mech warrior intros But the free space intro is something else the the first free space the voice acting in that and just the
01:52:51
Speaker
the air of like existential dread and terror of that intro because the pilot is freaking out his ship is horribly ripped apart and he's hauling ass as fast as he can and he's just like screaming he's like oh god they're following me i need help right now and and then it's like a wide shot and there's nothing around him there's nothing and And, and, and he finally gets in contact with somebody and he's like, and they're like, Hey, you know, what's up? And he's like, they're following me. You got to send everything out. You have right now. I swear they're following me. And, and she's like, there's nothing on radar. What are you talking about? It's fine. Everything's fine. And then, and then it's not fine. Like, and then shit goes, it's so cool. It's like one of the sickest reveals and the way they just like,
01:53:35
Speaker
Like they they portray it man. Oh my god, that gives that intro gives me goosebumps to this day That sounds right some old-school classic CG too. Yeah, here it is. Here's the video Nice well i like the old 90 CG this looks like yeah, this power. Oh, yeah he's freaking the fuck out and and the one line I think that stands out is the um the The lady on the comms is like, you know, hold tight. It's going to be OK. Everything's going to be fine. And he's just like, no, it isn't. You don't understand. You know, then and then the big fucking mothership comes out. The sheavans are actually called the the alien race that just comes out of nowhere. He's like, I don't know what they are, man. They wiped out everybody. Oh, man. It's so good, dude. That sounds great. The voice actor for this guy.
01:54:24
Speaker
like I find out. Absolutely killed. All video game intros ah went hard, as we say now. And I mean, there's still games that have awesome intros. um I have a sense that the old that they used to go harder, like they were ah they were a bigger deal to have in a game. You don't see you certainly don't see them as much anymore. But um there used to be some really awesome ones. and Actually, we had Pete Blumell on a few a few shows ago. shi and And you might like there in a segment he talks about working on ah the team doing the neck warrior two intro, I think, or three. I can't remember. So several neck warrior two intros because you had all the expansions yeah or mercenaries and go spares legacy. And oh, God, there's a third one. I OK, but anyway. Yeah, anyway, good stuff. I love those intros. Yeah. Yeah.
01:55:19
Speaker
Colton Dev gives $10. It says 2.10 when? Yeah. Um, so, you know, uh, it's a real funny, uh, story about that, uh, 2.10, you know, it's, it's probably going to... Shiv, we're losing you, bud. I think we're getting a camera issue. um Did the hurricane swoop you under your desk? yeah yeah Oh, no. i have I have no idea when 2.10, I can't say. I can never say. you know ah yeah Speaking of the hurricane, yeah my power hasn't gone out, which is good. um it was so so so So fill me in on that, though. So 2.10, is this a long-awaited patch?
01:56:01
Speaker
Yeah, um we've been working on 2.10 for a while. So 2.9.3 was the last update for RLCraft. That came out when? Fonny? Help? I don't remember. it was It's been a year at least. yeah And been talking about 2.10 and just kind of like steadily working on it um for a while now. And then we've taken breaks, then we've come back and then took some more breaks and have come back. and um There was some stuff we were waiting for and, and so and ah we had some dev streams, um, showing off some of the things we're working on. Yeah, go on. June 2023. Does that sound right? Yeah. So it's been, ah it's been over here now. Um, but yeah, so. Why don't you tell us maybe what we're going to find in two 10 for people who are chomping at the bit. Lightning dragons.
01:56:56
Speaker
I saw that um before. was What haven't you revealed? i I told you I'd put the squeeze on your shift. I don't know. I, I, we're not, we don't usually do like the, the hush, hush, keep it secret kind of thing. You know, like I've, I've done dev streams where we show off lightning dragons and the work on it. And I was actually re um kind of like rigging them in the animations ah for like flying and everything, um which we finally worked out a major issue with that, and that that's a whole other story. um So Lightning Dragons, and then we have like the distinct damage description mod, which is gonna add, something I've always wanted to do, which is adding D&D-like damage types. So just for example, we have like the three,
01:57:45
Speaker
um Now we're gonna have the three like physical like you have slashing damage blunt damage and piercing damage and I can specify what weapons do what then I can specify each mob and what they're weak like resistant to or vulnerable to you know, so skeletons will have a bit of resistance to pierce, you know because they're bones, your spirits just kind of going right through there, they're you know, um but they're gonna be weak to blood, because their bones are showing and fragile blunt shatter of the bone, whatever, you know, so I'm gonna I'm taking like a realistic approach. Yeah, I'm not the first person to do that. Obviously, like I think every game with skeletons and
01:58:19
Speaker
this distinct damage stuff like that always does resist appear so vulnerable to blunt. That's just kind of the way. um But it's in your vision, you know, for for deep systems, etc. Yeah. And then but I have to worry about, you know, like 500 other creatures because we have like an ice mobs in there and ice and fire and everything else. So um i've I've been going through and designing all that. um But we have a lot of. To win is going to have a lot of like good performance and quality of life things, the stuff that I can't really do. like Again, these are people like Fonny and Colin, Mel Dickson, all these people on my mod team who are are very, very ah just amazing at coding. You know? A big team, by the way.
01:59:07
Speaker
um It's really like. Is it hard to say because you have contributors, then you have like probably invested people. and that And like people just kind of come and go as, you know, the situations arise or whatever. It's not like, you know, we don't have like a hard set. I i think we we have like a few main people like Fonny, Mel Dixon, Ray, um Kotlin now, who is new, um you know, that are we're all constantly kind of working on something. um And then there's a bunch of other people um that just kind of come in and help out from ton of time when you know we need things, like especially with other modders, like Zero, who is the creator of the trinkets and baals mod. you know he has He has come in throughout the months as we're getting 2.10 ready um to help update stuff.
01:59:50
Speaker
um Same with Oblivion who was the um developer of Spartan weaponry. Young has also stopped in. I think Young is still here to help us with a couple things. I don't know if we i don't know if we've done 2.10 stuff specifically um with Young stuff. We had some updates to roguelike dungeons ah that are coming out in 2.10. There's the painting mod.
02:00:11
Speaker
We can now insert our own paintings, which is fun. oh Oh, and the biggest. Remember you were talking about like fun little details that really don't matter, but I'm doing it just for fun. Fani and I have overhauled how cutting down a tree works. OK, so.
02:00:31
Speaker
So there was a there was a mod that was an offshoot of dynamic trees, which is what we have in RLcraft. Dynamic trees, just when you chop a tree down, and the whole tree actually falls over and it pops into the items that you would get yeah instead of the floating one block at a time. Dramatic trees is a branch of dynamic trees that added um ah sound effects when it falls and then also a very kind of like baseline system for ah collision to be able to like hit other trees as it's falling and knock down that tree. But then we took that to the next level where Fawney basically reworked
02:01:16
Speaker
but ah that whole system and added a bunch more to the collision system. So now um as trees fall, if they clip branches, they'll actually just slice the branches off of the tree that it's scraping against. um It can knock over other trees in Domino. it can We can set up a whole list of what blocks it should be able to break. So now if a tree falls on your window, it will actually just smash the glass because it's fine now love it yeah i mean that sorry so you'll be in You'll be cooking at the furnace and your friend is cutting down tree outside and then you all What and you go sorry pause it is It's like the most mundane rudimentary task in our in Minecraft in general that you don't think about and we're adding all these these wacky features to it to go like super realism realistic and it's just it's just for fun it pretty much adds no gameplay that would be something that would have sold me though right like if i was inside tending to the house and then somebody was chopping a tree down and the act of them doing it smashed a window yeah or and i can just replace that window but it's that game feel it's that like role play thing of like for fucks sake right right i've specified which blocks it can break and everything you know like weaker blocks of wool so cool
02:02:32
Speaker
it's go circle did Did you say it was the there is dynamic trees and there's also dramatic trees do they heard that right There's like a second dramatic trees is the branch of diamond branch of it still dynamic trees, right? Um, but that branch was called dramatic trees and then we're making our own Branch of dramatic. I'd wait funny. Did we make that standalone or was it just uh? I don't know if we just are all mixing that I don't remember if we were standaloneing it or not But I only mentioned it because ah the name made me think of like a Laurence Olivier Shakespeare actor type, but he's a tree. And then he he gets cut down and he goes... ah
02:03:09
Speaker
Like he it's a it has to be a dramatic tree death to fit modifying at it run to Okay, so we're just using mixins to hook into it currently um We haven't had to like we have had need to make it its own thing But like the license of dynamic trees and there' is actually a cool thing about modding is people usually just do like the GNU license which means you can kind of take it and make your own version of it and everything as long as it's credited, which is super cool. So um that's why Dramatic Trees is able to just work off of yeah dynamic trees and release it as its own thing, you know, just because it's a little tweak of it and the license is very chill about it, which is cool. So so cool. I love it. Yeah, yeah. So I love modding. It's great.
02:03:47
Speaker
Last don't know from Colton Dev. Again, $10. Thank you so much. And says, I've heard a lot about Dragora RL craft, which will be released officially as a mod pack on Curse Forge pretty soon. I heard that you created an awesome trailer for it. What are your thoughts on it?
02:04:02
Speaker
is Is this so is is this somebody who's who's in the know? This is like somebody sneaky on there. They're all to count. Who's in Kotlin Dev. hope You know, OK, yeah, carlin I pronounced the name wrong. Sorry. Kotlin Dev. Yeah, Colin's on my dev team. he He wants me to talk about the sneaky. You made a trailer. Yes, it's not released yet. However, if I can throw some clips in the thing to if you want to show. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure her. Eric, you good.
02:04:31
Speaker
This is gonna be one of the things I'm keeping, we are keeping a little hush-hush, only because this is, so this RLCraft Dragora is going to be the very first um official spin-off pack of RLCraft. So it's still RLCraft, but with its own kind of unique twist, I suppose.
02:04:59
Speaker
Right, um and this is something people have kind of asked us to do for a while, um because we we host a server called the Echo Server, where we do RLCraft with a twist every three months, where we we kind of fundamentally change how RLCraft will be played by you know adding or removing a mod or changing dynamics or gameplay or something. um And some of them have turned out to be really fun. Dragora, and let me pull up. I have to find one second.
02:05:29
Speaker
I'm not good at multitasking, so. You're good. Yeah, fine. I need to talk. Go also. No, no, fun for it's all good. Go for it. Fine. Yeah, I'll throw in a couple of videos here to show. What it's kind of all ah about. Here's one file. Here's another. Um.
02:05:56
Speaker
Let me find the really, really cool one. Is it this one? Okay. Saving sure, yeah. Interesting. Throw some of these up if you'd like. um
02:06:10
Speaker
Dragor is a project by um two guys called Black Eagle and Black Haven, Heaven, sorry, Heaven, um ah who are two Dutch guys that have their own kind of like, it's like a map generator kind of project.
02:06:29
Speaker
um where they they have this world that is created. it's It's a set world, but it's also not. So it's not particularly an adventure map. It's more like you have painted regions that will always spawn a certain thing, but what's in them is procedural. You know what I mean? And then there are also set locations and stuff. um And they started merging it with Arrowcraft because they loved Arrowcraft so much.
02:06:51
Speaker
up like two years ago. So this project has been ongoing for a long time. So it's your garden all craft coming together to create a very unique experience. A lot of stuff is specifically written now for our all craft in their dragora version for our craft. it's It's a little weird. um But yeah, like that clip there says persistent regions mixed with procedural generation, you can kind of see some of the unique biomes and stuff. Yeah, it's going to have um It has 300 new structures. It has a bajillion new biomes. It has, more importantly, the world itself is its own kind of like story. So there's a good bit of like lore and things to discover about the world. um It has its own unique creatures and you know monsters and things to fight. and And like I said, there's unique locations. There's unique um villager trades trading and stuff.
02:07:46
Speaker
Wow. What makes the what makes a generation different, though? Because as far as I understand, like a lot of the regions are already procedurally generated. ah but Well, it's not using Minecraft terrain generation at all for for one. OK. And this is like sculpts. So like, OK, this this trench you're seeing right now wouldn't generate normally in any other um like terrain generator. they They this is something that is hand painted by by Eagle and Haven.
02:08:15
Speaker
ah that they were doing for their Dragora project. and and um i don't want to so I can't spoil too much because I want the players to discover. yeah You can't spoil other people's work, fair enough. Well, I mean, it is our work and and we just want to keep it like, I love the sense of discovery, right? Yeah. I'm a fan of sense of discovery. um So yeah, Eagle in Heaven.
02:08:37
Speaker
um they they they They have these, I wish I could pull up the map, I don't have the map for it. That would actually be a spoiler. But there's, um there's like I said, that it's it's kind of hand painted and it's using ah um OTG, which is a type of terrain generation.
02:08:55
Speaker
um but it's it's all manually done. Like they have handcrafted the biomes and how they would generate. They use blocks and assets from biomes of plenty, which is a big bio mod that people know, but it's not going to generate like biomes of plenty. Like biomes of plenty's biomes are not technically in Aralcraft Dragora because they're not using it as the base for their generation. They're just using the assets to create all new custom never-before-seen bios, kind of like the big-ass volcano thing you're seeing. So, yeah, it is a little wacky to, wait, your beard's gone.
02:09:36
Speaker
i know I'm sorry. I'm listening. but But Eric's fucking with me. Now you're bald. I did. I did. I have shaved my head at least one or two times. My face is gone. No, I'm just wait. le me Let me do it. It's like I'm doing an interview. yeah Eric, is this is this your way of telling us that we we need to start wrapping up? because So we're we're degrading with we're becoming we're becoming lesser. Yeah, this that that mold sounds Super interesting to me, especially like that, that gives me, um, I love those jumping off points for either your own creations or your exploration. You know, I don't get me wrong. I love the procedural generation of minecraft, but having that little spark of interest to, to see where you want to go or what you want to build, I think is a.
02:10:25
Speaker
Really beautiful and it sounds like you guys are putting a lot of effort into that without going into too many spoilers So that's right. Yeah, this is a huge huge amount of work. We're we're on the cusp of release We're like right there, you know, we just got to get over this and I have this channel are pretty much entirely done. I just need to um where We're still designing the logo. Where will that be posted the the full trailer once it's done? Oh, the trailer is gonna be on my youtube channel.
02:10:50
Speaker
Awesome. And then and then the it will be a separate mod pack that you download from CurseForge. On CurseForge, OK. So that's a a beautiful thing, Shavoxie. Can you let our our viewers know where they can find you if they want to see more content from you, stuff on your YouTube channel, and stuff like that? Yeah. um I mean, you Google Shavoxie, and pretty much all my socials come out. It's kind of the benefit of having a unique name. But yeah's yeah, it's YouTube slash Shavoxie, Twitch slash Shavoxie, whatever else, really, just my Discord, where we kind of post dev updates and stuff.
02:11:20
Speaker
um So yeah, it's... um What video editor somebody asked? Oh, ah that was that was Eric. um I did um the text tracking as an After Effects and then I'm doing everything in Vegas um to put all the clips together. Nice. Yeah. Good choice.
02:11:37
Speaker
It's a choice. i'm I'm excited for it. It's going to be really cool. I think it's so much unique stuff. There's unique mobs and unique stories. There's like set locations like ah like there's a town, for example, like a big town that will always be there right at that location. But everything around it is still procedural. You know what I mean? So that's that's a little bit of, you know, kind of the inner workings of it. It's like it's a mix of.
RLCraft Dragora Spin-off
02:12:00
Speaker
I'm really interested. That's like right up my street.
02:12:03
Speaker
Yeah, your passion is clear, dude. Right on. Right on. The fire is still alive. The magic is the magic is is alive and well. It's clear from the way you're talking about. If anybody was wondering, this is what's been delaying 2.10. We were trying to get Dragora out. so But just will hopefully hold people over until 2.10. So yeah, there's there's a lot of Easter egg secrets and surprises in Dragora. I'm super excited for people to discover. It's going to be fun.
02:12:30
Speaker
I'm sold. I'm so sold. I'm looking forward to that trailer as well. And that's going to be on your channel. Right. shaboxy Yeah. I'm going to upload to my channel and everything. Yep. Beautiful. Uh, this has genuinely been, uh, not counting the the delay we had at the beginning, which was nobody's fault, but I, this is, I think been the longest episode we've ever done. Um, just because I've, I think we've all been so in, in raptured about just discussing mods and like the passion and and the love for it. So actually thank you so much for joining us. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you on.
02:13:00
Speaker
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. This has been great. Super fun. Yeah. Thank you, man. Yeah. And um before we go, yeah, if you guys enjoy this content, we've got loads more stuff coming up.
02:13:12
Speaker
And we've got a bunch of streams, lots more horror content coming up in second wind and all of the shows that you know and love. I can't net my brain is like frazzled. It's the end of the week. So there is content and it's coming, um including more stuff from me um and everyone here at second wind. But yeah, everyone in chat. Thank you so much for being so engaged. We love you and we'll see you in the next one. Yeah. Thank you, everybody. Bye bye. Bye bye.