ModCast Episode 04: "Now With 87.5 Percent Less Ken"

[DanQ]

The fourth episode of ModCast is here, an official podcast of Apolyton Civilization Site (ACS). "Now With 87.5 Percent Less Ken" (45m23s) features the four core panelists Wouter "Locutus" Snijders, Tony "GarretSidzaka" Kiehl, Kenneth "Impaler[WrG]" Ferland and Oscar "Elhoim" Velzi.

ModCast is a bi-weekly ~45-minute audio production of Apolyton Civilization Site and is an ongoing effort to give the Civ community an interactive voice on Civilization modding; its sibling show PolyCast focuses on Civ strategy. To date, ACS is the only community on the web to produce its own Civilization podcasts.

[DanQ]

Summary of Topics

- 01m52s | News
  The Civilization: Revolution release date comes up and the start of a how-to modding video series from "Fall from Heaven"'s Derek "Kael" Paxton.
- 12m38s | Artist's Sketchpad
  Three items of interest this time around: Clockwork Golem by seZereth, SMAC Spartan Cityset by woodelf and Modern Paratrooper v2.0 by the show's very own GarretSidzaka.
- 21m03s | Code Corner
  The KFM Converter by Esemjay and answering what a KFM file is in the first place.
- 30m12s | Cartography Room
  The Spiral Galaxy Mapscript by Cephalo is examined.
- 37m48s | Mailbag
  We got mail! We respond to a listener wondering about our covering Galactic Civilizations II works in the future.

[Maniac]

I guess I'll do some advertisement here, since the mod was mentioned in the modcast:

If you want to help with Planetfall/SMAC "taken to the next level" (to quote IIRC Locutus), we could definitely use:

• SDKers
• a graphics coordinator who understands how Afterworld unit graphics work
• a mapscripter

[DanQ]

Hope you enjoy this latest episode of ModCast, Maniac.

[N35t0r]

They say that a PC CivRev version wouldn't be probable because it'll be a PC version of a Console version of a PC game... But there's precedent!

The Civilization Boardgame is, effectively, a boardgame about a PC game based on a boardgame!

[GarretSidzaka]

Excellent!!

@maniac
i hope you guys get the help you need! we NEED SMAC!

@N35t0r
yeah, we mention that in the episode a little

@DanQ
Thanks for posting dan

[DanQ]

Originally posted by GarretSidzaka
Thanks for posting dan

Welcome. Thanks for editing it!

[Elhoim]

Originally posted by N35t0r
They say that a PC CivRev version wouldn't be probable because it'll be a PC version of a Console version of a PC game... But there's precedent!

The Civilization Boardgame is, effectively, a boardgame about a PC game based on a boardgame!

I hope that you liked the episode

[Fierabras]

"...unless EA buys up Take2..." Nice topical comment, Wouter!

And yes, esemjay is quite new to CIV, but is a darn good coder...

[DanQ]

Originally posted by Fierabras
"...unless EA buys up Take2..." Nice topical comment, Wouter!

They recorded that episode before that news even broke.

[Fierabras]

Originally posted by DanQ

They recorded that episode before that news even broke.

I know, which made it all the more funny to hear it. Maybe something to discuss in the next Polycast? ... oh wait ... that has probably just been recorded

[DanQ]

Maybe.

[Murg]

Made me realize that if the EA buyout goes through SMAC2 may be possible. Thats a heck of an interesting thought.

[Murg]

Okay, it was a decent modcast but I do have a few bones to pick. First of all understand that I have very high hopes for the modcast, I love Civ4 modding so its definitly the first thing on my iPod that gets listened too.

My biggest complaint is that you guys don't seem to review the material you are going to cover before the modcast. Its hard to review something if you haven't tried it yourself. Its easy to check out the forum entries on it but Im hoping you gusy can provide more detail than that, especially about the mods. Play them, say what you like, say want you don't like, give a true review (not a Fox News review where they don't even try it first).

Secondly get the modders on the show. When you review their mod it would be great to have them talk about why they decided to go a certain direction and the things they like and don't like about their mods. I think that would be helpful to other aspriing modders and interesting for everyone to listen to.

I can probably help get a modder on the show if you have someone you like and you are willing to commit to trying out the mod before the show.

[jkp1187]

Good episode. The KFM utility sounds like one of the more useful tools I'd never heard of.

"Gal Civ" is one of those games that I wish I had time to play more. I was playing it fairly regularly before BtS was released last year. Some really neat innovations, but I just wish they'd used the spacelane idea for travel instead of the squares (space combat in interstellar space never quite made sense to me.) That said, it would be nice to hear about some of the mods that were developed for it -- I understand that it was very modder-friendly.