OpenMW FAQ #2

[psi29a]

Like how the XL Engine will support more than one game.

To be fair, XL Engine is an engine for many games. Originally it was DarkXL and DaggerXL (and more) with totally different code bases. LuciusDXL spent about a year refactoring to make a 'common' engine. Even then, there are specific *.dll (*.so) per game to handle non-common factors. You cannot compare considering that OpenMW is focused only on Morrowind.

[HiPhish]

Even then, there are specific *.dll (*.so) per game to handle non-common factors.

Yes, that's how I imagined a possible OpenMW in the future, having one common basis and then separate parts for different games. At least that's what I aively assumed was possible, but I'mnot trying to argue with people who actually know the technical details ^^

[WeirdSexy]

@Zini
When you say "more or less everything" about the MCP, etc. The thing about MCP is that lot's of the "fixes" that it provides are either rebalances that alter gameplay mechanics a bit or things that the developer(s) simply thought Morrowind got wrong. An example of the latter would be adding the month of Morning Star to the caldendar. Is OpenMW really planning on implementing these sorts of things by default or should I say something like "OpenMW will have almost all gameplay de-hardcoded, so modders will be free to tweak them as they see fit"?

[Zini]

Yes, that's how I imagined a possible OpenMW in the future, having one common basis and then separate parts for different games. At least that's what I aively assumed was possible, but I'mnot trying to argue with people who actually know the technical details ^^

That is exactly the situation I want to avoid. If someone really wants to make a different game, he can take the source and fork it. For everything else we should provide sufficient modding capabilities, that do not require to change the source.

When you say "more or less everything" about the MCP, etc. The thing about MCP is that lot's of the "fixes" that it provides are either rebalances that alter gameplay mechanics a bit or things that the developer(s) simply thought Morrowind got wrong. An example of the latter would be adding the month of Morning Star to the caldendar

We are not adding such changes, but we will make OpenMW moddable enough that others can do it via an esp, so we are kinda adding them indirectly.

should I say something like "OpenMW will have almost all gameplay de-hardcoded, so modders will be free to tweak them as they see fit"?

That sounds about right.

[Zini]

An example of the latter would be adding the month of Morning Star to the caldendar.

That on the other hand was working correctly right from the beginning in OpenMW. Its obviously a bug and I see no point in replicating it. Should this really break something in someones plugins, we can always add a strict mode to OpenMW that replicates these kind of bugs exactly.

[HiPhish]

That is exactly the situation I want to avoid. If someone really wants to make a different game, he can take the source and fork it. For everything else we should provide sufficient modding capabilities, that do not require to change the source.

Makes sense. Does that mean things like gameplay mechanics are hardcoded into Morrowind's engine and not part of what is contained in Morrowind's data files? Or is it like a multi-purpose engine where the engine is just what is technically needed to get the game running and everything else like the actual gameplay is done via scripts (I have been working with Unity engine where the user doesn't do anything at the low levels)

[Zini]

Does that mean things like gameplay mechanics are hardcoded into Morrowind's engine and not part of what is contained in Morrowind's data files?

That is the situation we currently have in vanilla MW.

Or is it like a multi-purpose engine where the engine is just what is technically needed to get the game running and everything else like the actual gameplay is done via scripts (I have been working with Unity engine where the user doesn't do anything at the low levels)

We are still going for a real-time 3D (mostly) singleplayer RPG engine. So it is not really multi-purpose. But we will be doing a lot in scripts after 1.0, yes.

[raevol]

Combat is one of the things we definitely will be de-hardcoding. We will not change the combat system. But we will empower mod developers to do so.

You. You are awesome.