X-COM XCOM 2 + War of the Chosen Expansion Thread

[Zombra]

Two full pages not about XCOM 2. Enough already.

 

[Average Manatee]

I don't think I've ever seen that in either TFTD or X-Com. Maybe ontop of the multi-story buildings in TFTD that are hard to path out of, but never in the open.

 

[Jasede]

All my memories after 2000 hours of X-Com 1 and 2, the old, and the thing that stands out the most are endless "hunt the last alien" moments, in both games. Still love them, of course.

 

[Alienman]

Xenonauts solved that problem. Camp their spaceship for three turns and you win. Nice solution.

 

[cvv]

An announcement:

We are happy to announce Long War Studios, the developers behind the Long War total-conversion mod for XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM: Enemy Within, has partnered with Firaxis Games and 2K for XCOM 2.

The Long War Studios team, which is comprised of John Lumpkin, Rachel “Amineri” Norman and James “JCLewis” Karlson, is currently hard at work on multiple mods for XCOM 2. These mods are currently slated to be available at launch on February 5, 2016. We’ll have more information about the content of these mods soon.

 

[Zombra]

Welcome to last week

 

[cvv]

Welcome to last week

Nobody reads last week news bro

 

[Grotesque]

You know what makes TFTD harder? The lovecraftian horror theme

Walking into a barn blasting aliens is one thing, but sending aquanauts deep down in the sea into old forgotten ships and what not is true nerve-racking horror. Just think about. Sure, the men we get are elite, but I have hard time believing they have any true experience in underwater combat. And here they are expecting to perform under water and kill totally unknown species of aliens with harpoon weapons, in the aliens home environment (often in complete darkness).

Spoiler

Spoiler

But on a more serious note regarding of what you said, this is an actual magazine ad for terror fom the deep:

Spoiler

 

[Zarniwoop]

Dafuq is a "brins"?

 

[Talby]

Dafuq is a "brins"?

Goddamn product placement.

 

[Disgruntled]

Anyone know if there will be a preload option?

 

[Makabb]

Can it realy be incline?

 

[Daedalos]

This is shaping up nicely, can't for ta try it.

 

[Zombra]

Anyone know if there will be a preload option?

I don't know anything, but I'll be astonished if there isn't.

 

[Zeriel]

http://www.twitch.tv/pax2/v/38694034

Starts at around 2 hours and 20 minutes, highlights are lots of modding stuff, some Long War minimods for release with SMG weapon class, new soldier class (officer), and a new enemy (Muton Centurion)

Also the debug tool is probably the most impressive thing they showed, it can do replays from saves with free camera and real-time playback (i.e the mission plays out in real time with soldiers performing their turns in sequence). You can have hotseat mode (the player plays both the alien and XCOM turns), and other crazy stuff, like line of sight debugging, loading any custom level/parcel combination for testing, and plenty of stuff I'm sure I've forgotten.

Generally Firaxis made competitors who claim to be "modding friendly" look like a bunch of incompetent assholes.

 

[Space Satan]

That's...impresve.
Generally, devs fucked modders hard lately. Every Total War lied time and time again about mods, others did the same.

 

[Alienman]

Replays sounds cool. I loved watching a whole match in Laser squad nemesis.

Here is an interview btw with Jake and the main modder from Longwar:

 

[mutonizer]

Sounds pretty cool. Also, could be just PR but that bit about "ownership" at ~16:40 really resonated, especially in today's market.
Aside from just rule modules and map bits, I'm hoping to see some kind of The Sims 3/Skyrim level of new/customized character shit like armor parts, skins, weapons and whatnot.

That and of course the first Power Ranger total conversion or something

 

[orcinator]

That's...impresve.
Generally, devs fucked modders hard lately. Every Total War lied time and time again about mods, others did the same.

Firaxis themselves lied about Xcom:EU mods.

I'm actually finding it hard to believe this isn't another "mods soon™" situation

 

[Zeriel]

That's...impresve.
Generally, devs fucked modders hard lately. Every Total War lied time and time again about mods, others did the same.

Firaxis themselves lied about Xcom:EU mods.

I'm actually finding it hard to believe this isn't another "mods soon™" situation

JET FUEL CAN'T MELT STEEL BEAMS

 

[Makabb]

There is some gameplay in german




why can't they make eng subs ?

 

[Average Manatee]

Would be very impressive if the game turns out to be highly moddable. Firaxis has not had a great track record recently.

 

[Zombra]

Hm, the announced launch mods are pretty lightweight but cool I guess. I'll use em.

I was hoping to see LW's fatigue system, great for forcing you to build a substantial roster instead of just a dream team of your top 6. Oh well.

 

[Zeriel]

Hm, the announced launch mods are pretty lightweight but cool I guess. I'll use em.

I was hoping to see LW's fatigue system, great for forcing you to build a substantial roster instead of just a dream team of your top 6. Oh well.

That's baked into the base game. Fatigue timers are a lot longer in XCOM 2 across the board to promote a deeper roster, though not to the extent of Long War.

 

[Perkel]

Sounds pretty cool. Also, could be just PR but that bit about "ownership" at ~16:40 really resonated, especially in today's market.
Aside from just rule modules and map bits, I'm hoping to see some kind of The Sims 3/Skyrim level of new/customized character shit like armor parts, skins, weapons and whatnot.

That and of course the first Power Ranger total conversion or something

From what i see those editors for those games are joke compared to tools provided for Xcom2
They showed it at PAX how can you completely edit anything or add new things just via copy paste different things from different weapons, add new abilities etc.
Not only they provided way to easily script stuff but they added huge amount of debugging tools which are by far the best part of mod tool package.
There is literally debugger which takes save and then executes every line of code one after another showing you exactly what certain part of code does, what stats change after hit, what calculation does to get that damage and so on. So you can debug completely your mechanics.


What is best though is that game does provide full access to source code, all scripts, all models textures and so on and provides easy and nice way to add things to it in 3 forms:

1. Adding as plugin, so nothing in vanilla will be changed
2. Changing actual game scripts, so you are no longer constrained via original build of game that doesn't allow you change anything without hexedititng
3. outputs most of important stats and so on to text files where you can in notepad change for example weapon damage or range etc.

All of that modding applies to almost everything including maps for example.


So to sum it up:

You can make new maps let's say medievil style, new character with edited or entirely new animations, you can change all weapons to malee ones and add bows and all of those weapons can be further specified like two handed one handed, sabres, rapiers etc same as characters equipment and so on. Then you can edit even how game plays removing parts of game and replacing them with something else if you want.

Only think stopping you from making actual RPG would be probably dialog UI which again modders will be able to make from scratch if they want as they have access to source code so they can for example take parts of UI then write some actuall code on top of that and hook it up to game.

Hell you you can edit every animation or parts of animations to make new animations from that tool kit or make something new in UE cinema tool (which is free) and hook it up to this tool kit.

I think XCOM2 set THE new benchmark for modding tools

Only unknown is really how it will be supported after release and how will patching work. If small patch will brake compatibility for all mods, parts of it or usually nothing.

Part of reason why some toolkits for modders didn't work for several games was that patches for those games usually meant that you had redo parts of your mods everytime new patch arrived which quickly killed most of mod support.