Tomb Raider Level Editor in games list?

[Caesum]

Sorry if wrong place! Anyway, I have noticed that nexusmods has already several sites for Tomb Raider mods. All of those sites have about 7-10 mods max and yet they are still being kept. Meanwhile the entire "modding" community of Tomb Raider franchise seems to be focused on custom levels made using Tomb Raider IV engine kit that was released by Core Design in 2000. That toolkit is called Tomb Raider Level Editor and it has an enormous popularity within Tomb Raider community.

 

There is one site which hosts most custom levels and just there you can find 2951 custom levels made using that engine or one of its modified versions.

Meanwhile another known TRLE site which hosts resources has 4500 items (including whole sets) and even though the site itself seems to be abandoned by owners, the resources are still being uploaded on a nearly daily basis.

For a time there was even a separate application that would quickly download and install custom levels (TR Level Manager), much like mod managers for TES games, although it was dropped some time ago since everyone now just makes standalone versions of their levels.

 

Because of that I was wondering if it was (or will be) ever considered to add a separate Tomb Raider Level Editor page to nexusmods? It is a huge branch of custom content that contains both mods and resources and it is still popular these days. It's so popular that an amazing unofficial editor was made (Tomb Editor) and a new engine rewrite is in the works (tr5main; there are also several other working engine rewrites but they are not focused on modding).

 

I saw that there was option to add a new game while uploading mods, but I'm not sure what is the nexus policy regarding "games" that are pretty much just modkits with several example levels. I mean, if you download a TRLE pack (or buy TR5 with it) then you can actually play several pre-made TR4 levels included with it, but idk if nexus considers it a game or not.

Edited March 14, 2021 by Caesum

[Pickysaurus]

Hey Caesum,

 

We're happy to add any game to our site as long as someone uploads a mod for it :)

 

In this case, it sounds like it'd be more fitting to upload them under Tomb Raider IV as the game and we can create categories/tags to suit the different types of mod.

 

https://help.nexusmods.com/article/104-how-can-i-add-a-new-game-to-nexus-mods

[Caesum]

Great, thanks! I have uploaded my custom level, but out of habit wrote Tomb Raider Level Editor anyway instead of Tomb Raider IV when adding new game... Although personally I think it should be still separated. Tomb Raider Level Editor is not exactly a Tomb Raider IV mod. TRLE levels won't work with TR4 main game. Technically it's a separate, updated engine. I think it would make more sense to separate TR4 mods (that modify TR4 game) from TRLE levels (which do not modify original game in any way). That being said if you still think it's better to put it in TR4 section I can happily change that.

 

Also, what is the status of custom modified executables? Most TRLE games now use FLEP (FLExible Patcher) which some antiviruses flag as false positives (because it basically edits the executable itself). My custom level depends on that and I'm worried it might be rejected because of that.

Edited March 14, 2021 by Caesum

[Pickysaurus]

Great, thanks! I have uploaded my custom level, but out of habit wrote Tomb Raider Level Editor anyway instead of Tomb Raider IV when adding new game... Although personally I think it should be still separated. Tomb Raider Level Editor is not exactly a Tomb Raider IV mod. TRLE levels won't work with TR4 main game. Technically it's a separate, updated engine. I think it would make more sense to separate TR4 mods (that modify TR4 game) from TRLE levels (which do not modify original game in any way). That being said if you still think it's better to put it in TR4 section I can happily change that.

 

Also, what is the status of custom modified executables? Most TRLE games now use FLEP (FLExible Patcher) which some antiviruses flag as false positives (because it basically edits the executable itself). My custom level depends on that and I'm worried it might be rejected because of that.

 

Sorry for the delay Caesum, I'm looking at your submission now. The issue I have with adding it as TRLE is that it isn't an officially available as a tool anymore so finding artwork for it will be a challenge (we like to use artwork that does not feature any text or logo where possible.). I wonder if added the game as TR4/The Last Revelation/Chronicles and create categories/tags

 

Regarding the virus scan, I can see that your upload hit 17 VirusTotal positives. That's a lot more than we'd normally expect from a mod. Do all these levels require their own EXE files are can they be shipped without it and loaded by a "master" EXE?

[Caesum]

Thanks for response. TRLE can be downloaded from tombraiderchronicles.com. The artwork officially used for TRLE is based on one promo render of Tomb Raider Chronicles that you can check HERE. Would that be fine enough?

 

About your question regarding modified *.exe. There are custom levels that only use either original umodified tomb4.exe or Tomb Raider Next Generation Level Editor tomb4.exe, which both are fine by most antiviruses. But practically every mod after 2012 has some FLEP patches applied and it is very difficult to predict if the game will work fine without it or not. For example my level uses several "FLEP patches" to add new particle effects and new moves. Without it the game might not be possible to be finished.

Until a new engine is written to make it easier to modify game's behaviour, FLEP will be still used by the community I'm afraid. There is an engine rewrite in works though, called tr5main (a bit like OpenMW I assume, although it won't be compatible with any prior titles or custom levels, it's strictly for level creators).

 

I did send my tomb4.exe to Microsoft Security Intelligence for additional testing though.

 

EDIT: They analyzed the file and removed the detection. The latest malware detection shouldn't consider it a threat anymore:

http://i.imgur.com/oUpfw2rm.png

Edited March 17, 2021 by Caesum

[Pickysaurus]

Hi again Caesum,

 

Thanks for providing that info. I've noticed that you've since removed your mod page (I suspect because it took so long for me to get back to you, sorry about that!).

 

I'll leave the TR:LE game site as it is for now in case you want to reupload your file. As far as the EXE requirement goes, if your upload was a typical mod for this editor, it triggered a lot of VirusTotal warnings so it would mean that most of the files will have to be manually approved before they can be downloaded.