Drakous79 Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 Hello guys :) What is XCOM: Enemy Within? Is it new new DLC for XCOM:EU 2012? Today I've spotted 30 new unnamed achievements on Steam. XCOM Enemy Within 'set for Gamescom reveal' Maybe there's another paramilitary organisation fighting alien threat, but only for supreme technology to rule the world. Anyway, I wonder, what it's gonna be :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobbes77 Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 They released a trailer during Pax East 13 but doesn't reveal anything other than: "We now believe that another force is at work against us...*static*" . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF1MqYb0dmE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drakous79 Posted August 6, 2013 Author Share Posted August 6, 2013 Cool! Can't wait to find out what happened! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheOldOne822 Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 A large update and new DLC could put our modding efforts back to square 1 as we are using left in debug code to fit the mods in that could be removed in an update. 2k could even decide to sign/encrypt the exe, they did try to have the upks hash checked and have forced phone home to prevent modding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amineri Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 I suspect that the upk hash checking and phone home features are there to try and reduce the incidence of Multiplayer cheating, and only interfered with our modding efforts as a side effect. Firaxis' other title continues to have good modding support, but I'm really unsure whether or not they would have been able to re-structure the code enough (under a year since initial release) to add any modding support. My intuition is that they will leave a lot of code untouched (why change code unless you have to, since changing code costs $$$). However, since we currently have to access functions and variables at the hex level, simply adding new variables and functions can cause the hex references to existing variables and functions to change. This will mean re-working every mod created to be compatible with the new hex references, which means quite a lot of work. Not as much as creating the mod in the first place (for mods changing functions whose functionality is essentially unchanged) -- I'd guess around 10 to 15% of the time originally creating the mod to update it for new variable / function hex references. While I'm looking forward to see more content and more maps, and am hopeful (faintly) for a bit more support for modding built in, the amount of work needed to get previous mods working makes my head hurt just thinking about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnylump Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 @ Drak Great to see you on here again, old boy! @ TheOldOne Yep, it's a real concern. Slingshot at least didn't hurt too much, IIRC, so it all depends on how much they gut existing code, rather than just add on to it. In the meantime, we can advise players and modders to turn off automatic updates on Steam if they want to keep playing mods -- it's likely there's a patch that will accompany the expansion's release, and that will cause problems even for people who don't buy the expansion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amineri Posted August 6, 2013 Share Posted August 6, 2013 Yep, it's a real concern. Slingshot at least didn't hurt too much, IIRC, so it all depends on how much they gut existing code, rather than just add on to it. From what I've seen of how the intrinsic code is structured, their previous DLC plans were only going to be the structured council mission campaigns and cosmetic add-ons (hair/helmet, face and deco armors). These can be added pretty easily without broaching the existing code. Adding some new weapons wouldn't be too much more difficult for Firaxis (as opposed to us modders). Adding a new weapon requires creating a new child class of XGWeapon and adding it to the library (each child class is pretty lightweight), and then linking it to the new animation / mesh which is stored as a separate file. This also wouldn't be a huge impact on the code. They may also re-add / finish off some features that didn't make it into the original release. There were tunnel swarm and street swarm missions as well as a base defense mission type. Adding/finishing these is going to mean more substantial changes to the code. Creating new plot / mission objectives is going to mean some pretty substantial reworking of XComStrategyGame.upk. If there's a new campaign I'd say that this has to be in there. Offhand I'd hazard to say that they really don't need to change much about the tactical game, so the XComGame.upk won't be changing as much as the strategy game upk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theoldone22 Posted August 9, 2013 Share Posted August 9, 2013 I have made a 7z archive of xcom so I can revert the update if I can't get the mods to work on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drakous79 Posted August 13, 2013 Author Share Posted August 13, 2013 Hey Johny :) Nice to see you too. They could bundle an editor with the new release :) Would be nice to write scripts finaly. Editing hex is fine, when it's only way, but as guys said, patches hurt. Hopefully everyone will buy it, because it's easier to mod for one version of the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amineri Posted August 13, 2013 Share Posted August 13, 2013 Just saw a post up on the 2k site which indicates that the Enemy Within savegames will be stored within their own savegame folder, /My Games/Enemy Within/Saves/ instead of within the existing Enemy Unknown saves folder, which indicates that it's going to be more than than just tweaking the existing campaign, I'd think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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