ModBuddy, Is It Possible For It To Be Worse?

[Mcsticken]

At first glance, the CivBE SDK looked like great fun, I've made a few mods in my day, some of which I've posted online, for a few different games, and immediately downloaded it. It's been a couple days of trying to make a mod, and yet again, it's ended in failure. Might as well start a list of things that's gone wrong so far, and who knows, maybe a miracle will happen, and it'll start working properly. Unfortunately, I'll be too busy flying around on a pig while playing Half Life 3, to mod at that point.

1) Visual Studio Shell (Isolated): Lots of people complaining about not being able open ModBuddy using the SDK launcher because it causes an error about missing components that will not fix itself, even though it downloads the (supposedly) proper version. Very little in the way of a fix for this "fix", official or otherwise. I've so far only found a workaround that seems to make me incapable of uploading mods to Steam. Not that I have anythign to unveil yet, but it would be useful for testing purposes.

2) File paths: It initally asked me where the game was installed, and where the user file was, but maybe ModBuddy has Alzheimers, as it then promptly forgot that I put anything in. Later, it said I needed to change the project properties to set the paths properly. I guess the person who wrote that didn't realize that either you can't do that in the project properties window, or they didn't realize lying about where to change the path is not a good thing. Tools > Options > Civilization Beyond Earth is not the same as the project properties window.

3) Can't just look at existing files: Maybe this is the norm, and I've only used modding programs from developers who went the extra step, but it's so much better if you can just scroll through the game files in the program without having to find and open them.

4) Created mods not working: Now that I've jumped through the hoops, and found information on how to fix ModBuddy for Civ V (I sense a running theme in Firaxis' modding programs...), I can finally start making mods. Not using the ones I can make though, no, that would be too simple. Instead, even when I copy and paste code from a working mod into mine, and leave it as just that copied code, it will not work. It shows up in the mods section ingame, claims it's being used, but unless you knew what the mod did (or rather, did not do), you'd only know it wasn't working because ModBuddy was used to make it, which is apparently the worst thing to do.

5) Lack of help: Not content with letting people have good examples to reverse engineer, they threw in a couple ultra basic examples and called it a day. This would be fine, if there wasn't a conspicuous lack of community help. More that half the links I found online were dead, and the rest were old. While this game did just come out, it's really only half new, as the other half is just rehashed code from Civ V (yes Beyond Earth, I saw through your cunning ruse of using the old names for unit types), and should really have some solid tutorials out after this long. Optionally, they've just hidden them. Take your pick.

So, to sum it all up, ♥♥♥♥ be whack, yo. At least the game itself hasn't crashed in a couple days, that's... something, I guess.

[Throedoe]

i'm getting an invalid license error for modbuddy. annoying as ♥♥♥♥

[lilbudywizer]

One thing when trying to just do someone else's mod is compare the modinfo generated by your project with the one for the mod you're trying to duplicate. Chances are you're missing some project properties. That's your manifest. Simply having files in the directory doesn't do jack. The game only loads the modinfo file and does what it tells it to do.

[Seboun]

Modbuddy doesn't work on my computer and there was never a fix for that. Never.

[Myth]

1) Visual Studio Shell (Isolated):
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40764. Free Download. No "Fix" needed. Basic stuff.

2) File paths:
Project properties window... Click a Project, look at the Properties Window. It's on the right. There is your Project Properties Window. It's literally right in front of you.

3) Can't just look at existing files:
Can you not? They are even grouped and organized for you...

4) Created mods not working:
Nowhere in your rant did you describe the part where you actually activated that code you copied. The game needs to know what you want it to do with your files.

5) Lack of help:
Every single time you open ModBuddy there are links to tutorials that answer every one of the things you just complained about. There is also a Civ Modding Wiki...an entire WIki...just for Civ modding.

ModBuddy is pretty great, take 10min and learn to use a simple editor. You spent more time ranting here than it would have taken you to learn everything you needed to know, if you would have tried.

[Mcsticken]

1) That didn't work for me, when I tried it.

2) Swing and a miss there, champ. I wasn't able to edit the filepath from there, just view it. To edit it, I had to go to a different window and hunt for it.

3) What bizarro world do you live in? I went through all the drop down menus and such, and found nothing like that.

4) So... I should just know to edit a file outside of ModBuddy to activate my code... instead of just being able to do it from inside of ModBuddy? Right... that makes perfect sense. It's not like it would have even been hard for them to include something to do that in the process of making your mod's files, instead of making you jump through hoops.

5) Golly gosh gee, I sure must have missed that. I must be at fault for not being able to load a series of broken links.

Originally posted by Myth:

ModBuddy is pretty great, take 10min and learn to use a simple editor. You spent more time ranting here than it would have taken you to learn everything you needed to know, if you would have tried.

I did try, you'd know that if you read my post. Wait, you read it, and still couldn't grasp the fact that I tried? You do realize when I've figured out the solution to various problems, that's called trying, right? ModBuddy's a simple editor, but it's also buggy with problems staying around for years. Why should I have to fix stuff that should be easily fixed by the devs in a day?

[Myth]

Originally posted by Mcsticken:

2) Swing and a miss there, champ. I wasn't able to edit the filepath from there, just view it. To edit it, I had to go to a different window and hunt for it.

Did you try simply Right-Clicking your Project and choosing 'Properties'?

Originally posted by Mcsticken:

4) So... I should just know to edit a file outside of ModBuddy to activate my code... instead of just being able to do it from inside of ModBuddy? Right... that makes perfect sense. It's not like it would have even been hard for them to include something to do that in the process of making your mod's files, instead of making you jump through hoops.

You can do it inside ModBuddy, it writes the whole file for you. It does exactly what your saying it can't. You have to press 3 buttons, that is it. It's something that is covered in every tutorial there is.

Originally posted by Mcsticken:

5) Golly gosh gee, I sure must have missed that. I must be at fault for not being able to load a series of broken links.

http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:27243
http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:27392
http://kael.civfanatics.net/files/ModdersGuide.pdf
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=493900
Any of these broke?