Confessions of a Master Mod Maker

Written by StrataDrake
Jul 26 '01 (Updated Jul 26 '01)

As one of the first (if not THE first) truly 3-dimensional game in the real-time-strategy (RTS) genre, WZ2100 paved some major groundwork during its short lifespan, and even though its developing company, Pumpkin Studios, was closed down over a year ago(2000), the developers left enough tools in the hands of the gaming community for them--and myself included--to continue from where Pumpkin left off.

Personal Tilt: +5 (maximum)

It isn't everyday that I give a game my maximum favorable tilt. Forgive me, but I must do a small amount of advertising to fully describe the reasons why I have stayed with this game for what is now approaching two years, when normally a game would be "played out" and shelved after such a long time.

I work with a group of gamers, known as the New Enhanced Working Strategies Team--"NEWST" for short. If you would like to visit the homepage and learn more about our projects yourself, feel free to go to www.newst.org and check it out.( note: N.E.W.S.T - turned to Pumpkin2 ) --Forgive me for advertising another site, but I did warn you.

Anyway, I was one of the first few members who formed the NEWST team back in late Summer 1999. Many Warzone2100 gamers would gather at the StrategyXTreme.com forums and post, post, post with ideas for Warzone. In fact, the Warzone 2100 forum was the most active branch of the StrategyXTreme site. With all the prospects for new tech ideas, I made a bold proposal about creating a genuine add-on campaign, a free "expansion pack", if you will--for Warzone 2100. The forum's moderator, Rman Jack (now the NEWST Team Leader) liked that idea so much that he got in touch with a few other forum members for more ideas, and before we knew it, NEWST was born.

Unfortunately, with Pumpkin Studios closed at the end of the year 1999, we lost all "official" support for our Warzone 2100 projects and ideas. However, soon afterwards, NEWST member Troman built the first mod-making utility for Warzone 2100; a "Customizer Kit" that allows a Warzone 2100 player to create an add-on "mod" with customized weapons. WZCK was the first step by which WZ2100 gamers could literally make their own dreams come true.

Things changed drastically around November 2000, when the StrategyXTreme forums mysteriously vanished. We believe that this was somehow related to GameSpy purchasing MPlayer, but we had no proof. Fortunately, by then the NEWST website was set up with its own set of forums for our own discussion. By now, I had become a decent modmaker for WZ2100, creating new weapons like a spreadfire rocket launcher, kamikaze, and Shockwave air-to-ground bombs.

More ideas were on the way. With the introduction of another fan-made utility, "WDG Explorer", we were soon able to look inside of Warzone's own data files and discover how things worked. Culminating several efforts (and a few serendipitous discoveries), the NEWST team was able to create our first major patch for Warzone 2100 -- known as the "Version 1.11 Update" a.k.a. "dec00.wdg" . By harnessing the limits of WZ's game engine, we were able to add many new and impressive technologies into play for Warzone's multiplayer mode.

Even now, ideas still roam in the works. After analyzing the format used by Warzone for its 3D object models, I began work on a six-month project called "Pie Slicer". Pie Slicer is the most recently released mod-making utility for Warzone 2100, designed specifically to edit "PIE" (Warzone 3D object) files. Used in tandem with the existing WZCK, new weapons can be heightened with new appearances and new graphics. Furthermore, our efforts to proceed with NEWST's initial endeavour--the advent of a playable sequel campaign for WZ2100--is finally underway. A new improved "WZCK 2.0" has repeatedly been hinted at on the forums and its screenshots alone stir quite a bit of interest. Furthermore, more explorations into the pathways of WZ2100's script language reveals the secrets to technologies that no one ever thought were possible.

... did I lose you yet? If not I'll keep talking about my experience in NEWST. However, by now I'm sure you all have a sense of my personal tilt, which means that it's time to move on:

Graphics: 12 of 15
Technical Aspects: 3 of 5
Cinematics: 4 of 5
Customizability: 5 of 5

Since this is a PC game, I must rate graphics on a somewhat different scale than I do consoles. Warzone uses DirectX 6 to run, and its support for the now-standard Direct3D system makes the graphics engine breathtaking at first glance. Combine this with Warzone 2100's conservative system requirements (P166 and 60 MB hard disk space) and this gives a higher "bang for the buck" than you would see in other games. Every texture on the map fits perfectly and gives an astonishing amount of detail, and despite the awesome scenics, the graphics engine chugs along at a high frame rate. The translucent water is almost photo realistic, and the graphical smoke and explosive effects during combat are not to be missed.

When playing the in-game campaign, Warzone 2100 also makes use of intermittent FMV sequences to give you your objectives. FMV's don't deserve technical aspects because they are mere image, but their cinematics well make up for it.

And as for customization of the existing graphics, an analysis of Warzone 2100's graphics files reveals a startling treasure trove of opportunities. Warzone 2100's game engine has room for approximately 30 "pages" of textures that are used for map terrain, objects, explosions, and everything else. All these "pages" are 'soft-coded', if you will, meaning that while they generally remain the same, they are installed on your hard drive and can be changed with the use of add-on WDG's (A "WDG" is a Warzone dataset, also called a mod). Creative modifications of Warzone 2100's texture and image pages not only result in new "skins" for the in-game objects and models, but the typeface and icons used for the in-game menus can also be changed.

Audio: 7 of 15
Musical Score: 1 of 5
Sound FX: 4 of 5
Customizability: 2 of 5

This is the one area where Warzone 2100 never saw its full potential. Warzone 2100 has but three background musics. The first is a sort of "atmospheric ambience" that you hear on the Title Screen. The second is a sort of "sad ambience" tune used for Campaign 1, and the third is a quiet "urban rap" tune--if you will--that occupies Campaigns two and three. While the campaign 1 and campaign 2/3 tunes are okay, the title-screen music can get pretty annoying.

There is hope, though. An oversight in Warzone 2100 literally allows you to play any CD you want. Whenever Warzone 2100 does not request its game CD (such as when loading a saved game), you can stick your favorite music CD into the drive, hit "play", and listen to your own tunes while playing Warzone 2100!

Sound FX are quite believable. Explosions sound dangerous, many of the more powerful weapons have unique sound FX (especially the feared "Nexus Link" seen in campaign three), and there are also some ambient noises made by your power generators and oil derricks. Furthermore, when constructing or repairing structures (or tanks), you can hear just about every pop and fizz made by the repair unit as it goes to work.

Unfortunately for modding purposes, Warzone 2100 supports only a limited number of sound FX. While this number generally ranges in the 300's or so, virtually 75% of its sound FX database is used to accompany text messages with their appropriate audio. This reduces the space available for new, custom sound FX by a drastic amount and precludes a good mod-maker from adding new sound FX to Warzone 2100 play. However, the existing WAV files can be replaced with new sounds themselves, which is the saving grace of the soundtrack's scale of customization.

Gameplay: 14 of 15
Controls: 5 of 5
Mechanics: 4 of 5
Customizability: 5 of 5

If there's one thing that can be said about WZ's overall game engine, it's all in the design. Warzone has many star qualities that more-modern RTS games have failed to match. The visual interface is largely un-cluttered by any redundant displays. On the lower-right of the screen you have a radar map (which you can switch on/off by pressing F7) and on the lower-left is a reticule containing your command functions and a bargraph showing your base's available resources (which can also be switched on/off, by pressing TAB). The rest of the screen is reserved for viewing the marvelous scenery of WZ2100, controlling your armies, and otherwise doing all the typical RTS duties.

WZ2100's camera is easy to adjust; simply drag the mouse off the screen to move the camera about the map, and hold the right mouse button down to rotate and tilt the camera. The camera responds pretty quickly, and you can also accelerate or slow the flow of gameplay down to suit your tastes.

The Command Reticule contains six main options, or Commands if you will. First and foremost is the Construction pane, which opens up a window displaying all available "trucks" (construction units) and all available structure types that you can build. Second, is the Manufacture command. This brings up a list of factories and available unit types that you can build (more details to come). Third is the Research pane; bringing up a list of research stations and the technologies you can research. Fourth is the Intelligence Window, which displays mission objectives and results gained through research. Fifth is the Design Screen. This is one of Warzone 2100's most important elements and star qualities.

Instead of choosing pre-fabricated units like in a normal RTS, Warzone 2100 allows you to create your own styles of unit from three parts: chassis, propulsion, and turret. The combinations of chassis, propulsion, and turret are virtually limitless (when the game box advertises 2,000 unit combinations, they aren't lying). The Design Screen is what you could call your "shop" for units; you can determine how you want your tanks built in a simple four-click process. You can even give tank designs their own code names!

And last (but not most important) is the Commanders button. When you have a commander unit in your army, you can use this tab to find it quickly and easily, because it only lists the available commanders.

The "other backbone" of WZ2100's game play is its scripting, and this is fully customizable. With the breakthroughs in what is possible, the limit of WZ's game play is growing. Recently, a combination map/mod called "War Gods" was released which gave WZ2100 game play a new angle--control over resources rather than domination over enemies. With the proper scripting and innovation, game modes like "Capture the Flag" can be devised for Warzone play.

Game Play is not without its flaws, though. There are many angles of WZ game play that Pumpkin never really addressed:

Unit Experience Levels:

Although units gain "kills" through combat and increase their rank, this has virtually no effect in game play. In C & C: RA2, a veteran unit would be noticeably stronger than a rookie unit, but in the WZ2100 engine, kills do nothing more than an accuracy boost.

Commanders:

This is another area that was never truly exploited. Commander units provide an easy way to group and control your armies--instead of issuing orders to the entire army, just order the commander around. Commanders give a noticeable accuracy boost to their army, focusing firepower so as to destroy a target as quickly as possible. Furthermore, you can carry around a set of repair vehicles easily with commanders, making battlefield repairs a snap. Also, commanders are the single most durable unit in Warzone 2100 play, cheaper than most high-tech weapon systems, you can assign factory production runs directly to them, and they can even command artillery defenses and aircraft! With all this, what's not to like about commanders? (see next point)

Arcade Tactics:

"Mass Rush", "Bait & Blast", and more. Warzone 2100's internal campaign was, in a way, scripted to encourage wholesale unit rushes and "suicide tactics". I.e., if you lose a unit on the battlefield, that is no big deal, just build another. But it is indeed a big deal. In real life, I don't know exactly how many military personnel would want to serve a commander who regularly loses half of his men in any given fight. One of the simplest fixes for this is to instruct your armies to retreat at heavy (or better yet, medium) damage. By automatically retreating when things get hot, this improves the survival rate of units...and besides, having to retreat from battle can become a necessity if you find yourself in over your head. I myself have never needed to resort to these "arcade tactics"--with one commander unit and an attached force of 20 units, I can generally walk all over the map (in single player, that is). Sure, it may take 10+ hours to defeat 3 AI players in skirmish mode, and I may have to assault a base 10+ times before I finally level it, but in the process of doing so I receive a minimum of casualties and a maximum of unit survival. Likewise, in the NEWST team, we are devoting time to re-balancing many of Warzone's weapons to provide a more fair and entertaining style of game play, and to encourage the use or ARTS (Advanced Real-Time Strategy) tactics such as unit preservation.

Type Matching / Dispersion:

Cyborg infantry are far undervalued in Warzone 2100 play. They're generally faster and more accurate than tanks, but they're far more fragile. Although cyborgs are granted some protection against anti-tank weapons, this is not enough because they simply aren't as durable as tanks in the first place (negating the effect). Also, hovertanks are similarly undervalued because they are more fragile than other forms of tanks, vulnerable to flamers and artillery (which regular tanks are not), and most skirmish maps don't have near enough water to perform aquatic (hover-based) assaults.

The Bunker Buster weapon, though, is one of the rarest and most useful weapons, because it is specifically designed to shatter defensive emplacements and bunkers. However, out of 100+ weapon systems, there are only two bunker busters, making it a bit rare. And its long reload period negates the effectiveness of a tank-mounted bunker buster. The aircraft Bunker Buster, on the other hand, packs enough firepower to shatter virtually any enemy defense in a single shot, is extremely lightweight and mobile, and since it only carries one shot, a BB-armed aircraft is one that gets in, does the job, and gets out before the enemy defenses can kick in. It is elements like these that cause players to generally use two or three weapons systems in the entire game.

To say that all WZ2100 weapons are equal is not true; "some are more equal than others", as they say. Many weapon systems have not been properly balanced for play; the usual balancers for a powerful weapon are either an astronomical cost or an intolerably-long reloading time. There are other ways to make balancers for weapons, had Pumpkin merely looked for them. Restricting a weapon's field of view is one; narrowing its firing range is another (i.e., making some weapons unable to work at close range); increasing its weight is yet another (this slows down the unit wielding it), and there are some very hidden balancers. Increasing an aircraft's payload capacity not only allows it do dish out more damage, but also increases the window of opportunity your opponent has to shoot down the jet. Replacing a lost jet is more expensive than simply repairing its damage, so when you want to strike an enemy with your air power, the best tactic is, ironically, to use lightweight but low-payload weapons like Bunker Buster and Scourge. You may have to make a lot of strike runs, but you won't be replacing very many lost aircraft. Air defense, on the other hand, is one arena where you want your aircraft to have a high payload, since you don't have to worry about your defensive aircraft getting shot down.

Storyline:

If I don't describe the premise of Warzone 2100 right now I'll never get around to it, so here goes. The year is 2100. Fifteen years ago, in 2085, laser-armed missile defense satellites of the North Atlantic Strategic Defense Association (NASDA) went awry, fooling the world's major cities into thinking that they were under attack by nuclear missiles. The world nations countered the supposed nuclear threat with their all-too-real nuclear arsenals, causing a catastrophic downfall now known as the Collapse.

Amidst the chaos of the Collapse's nuclear winter, a group of survivors in Seattle discovered an abandoned military complex. Taking shelter, they stayed underground through the Collapse and survived, while the majority of civilization perished.

Now, at the year 2100, the nuclear winter caused by the Collapse has finally lifted. This group of survivors, now known as "The Project", return to the surface and undertake an ambitious and dangerous mission--that of rebuilding America, and then of restoring the world.

Yet, as the player learns early on in the story, the Project isn't the only band of survivors out there. Scavengers--small bands and tribes of people who survived the Collapse on the surface--staunchly defend their territory with surprisingly effective weaponry. It is soon discovered that another new military power, known as the New Paradigm, is "funding" these scavengers. After a few skirmishes, the New Paradigm declares war on the Project, and the fighting begins.

Mysteries deepen with the hints of the Paradigm taking orders from an entity called "Nexus" and stationed somewhere else in America. Who is this unknown foe? Before long, the Project will have defeated the New Paradigm, only to discover who--or what--"Nexus" truly is, and to realize that defeating Nexus's allies is monumental to the restoration of the world.

Replay Value
Length: 4 of 5
Multiplayer Support: 3 of 5

Warzone 2100 has two basic modes of play: campaign and skirmish. Campaign mode operates with a storyline driving it, while Skirmish mode is the multiplayer side of WZ2100. Skirmish mode is where virtually all custom maps and unique mods make their appearance in game play, and it can be divided between single-player and multi-player.

In multi-player WZ2100, you play with and/or against other human players online. I have never had the chance to truly enjoy a real-live multiplayer game with anyone, but I hear that even it has its flaws. One of the biggest MP gripes is that WZ's game engine fails to remain synchronized during multiplayer. This means that those with faster connections can produce tanks and build structures faster than those with slow connections, literally out-playing those on slower machines (God have mercy on those with 28.8k connections and P166's ...)

Single-player skirmish, though, is noticeably less crash-prone (although marginally slower), because it runs only on your local machine. The basic AI programming for skirmish is fully customizable (thanks again to WZ's scripting language) and if you know the script language in and out, you can make the AI eat right out of your hand in almost no time at all. Single-player skirmish also doubles as a quick an easy way to test out new mods, because in real-live multiplayer, every machine needs to be running the same sets of mods and data, or WZ2100 will refuse to play a MP game.

And then there is the A.I. The WZ AI is, by definition, an "artificial intelligence", and thus on an equal playing field, a skilled player will always be able to make the AI cry uncle. This is another arena where NEWST has stepped in. There are several AI's that have been released to vary the quality of a skirmish of multiplayer game. First off is one of the early WZ2100 AI's (now known as the "legendary v1.04 AI") which cheated like hell in order to beat the player. Second and third are two NEWST creations, the Turtle and Water A.I. Together, these two fan-made AI scripts can beat the shell out of an unprepared player in skirmish.

Which brings to mind a third released fan-made WZ utility. "Warzone Starter" is an entry-room for WZ2100 multiplayer, which allows easy set-up and choices of active mods, AI's, rule sets, and multiplayer launching of WZ2100. It can also be used for single-player as an easy way to switch between different mods.

Full-Scale Customization:
Graphics: 5 of 5
Audio: 2 of 5
Scenery (maps): 4 of 5
Technology (weapons, defenses, etc.): 5 of 5

I already spoke about the ability to alter WZ2100's graphics and sound, but now, here comes the rest....

Months before Pumpkin Studios went kaput, they released Edit World, a basic WZ2100 map editor. Ironically, Edit World is quite buggy and not the best WZ2100 editor on the planet. Unfortunately, EW's source code is controlled by Eidos Interactive and WZ2100's map-file specs are still unknown. Thus, when we work on add-on maps, the only recourse is to work carefully, save often, and endure EW's bugs. There are also a lot of questions asked on the forums about how to properly use Edit World, and we are happy to answer them as best and quickly as possible.

Pie Slicer is the main editor for WZ2100 graphics. But it is not destined to be the only one. One other graphics format used by WZ2100, the "img" format, is the one that dictates what the menu icons look like. The IMG format is actually very simple (I cracked their format myself) and in due time an editor for those IMG files will be released.

WZCK is the second major editor for WZ2100, making the prospect of weaponsmithing relatively pain-free. I have recently spent a lot of time in my position as a NEWST programmer working on a better version of WZCK which will support more editing functions than just weapons (it will also support structure, research, etc. editing). When released, it will greatly raise the bar for what the general gaming community can accomplish in the path of mod-making.

There are also many new, interesting, and breathtaking abilities discovered through WZ's AI-scripting language. As an example, Warzone 2100's game engine permits units to carry only one turret. However, through creative scripting, "multiple-weapon units" have been forged for play in Warzone (of which a combination missile/bunker-buster cyborg makes a striking visual statement). Another new technology, previously deemed impossible, has been confirmed as 100% scriptable. Unfortunately, I cannot spoil the surprise, as it is going to be included in NEWST's upcoming add-on WZ2100 campaign.

As fun as customization or "modding" is, Warzone 2100 mods have their dark sides. Most notably is that in general, mods don't mix. If you have a mod with one special weapon, you can't mix it with a mod containing another special weapon. This is hard-coded into the way Warzone 2100 loads data, and can be quite troublesome. However, in most cases, you can mix add-on maps with special-weapon mods; the general rule is that if two mods contain the same types of data, they won't mix. This has caused a bit of questions recently in regards to the NEWST "v1.11 Patch", because all mods built to work for Pumpkin's official v1.10 Patch will not run if v1.11 is active.

Furthermore, WZ2100 isn't exactly the most user-friendly program if--or should I say when--it encounters a problem in a mod. If a mod has an error in it, Warzone spits out four error messages in a row before exiting you to your desktop (and only the first error message is of any real use). Had Pumpkin Studios spent more effort on the internal data-loading routines, they could have built WZ2100 to return the user back to the main menu (rather than crashing). Then there are the glitches that don't spit out any error messages, and these are usually traceable to a glitch in one of the PIE models used. Debugging a mod when it doesn't work is not easy to do; first, you need to disable all other mod's to ensure that it is indeed your mod causing the trouble, and then you need to figure out which part of the mod is causing the trouble. This is not for the faint-of-heart; sometimes, you have to remove the files from your mod (one by one) until WZ stops crashing, and even then you have to determine exactly what went wrong with the particular data.

Similarly, WZ mods have a hierarchy--also known as "compatibility info". Basically put, when a mod is made for WZ2100, a few "prerequisite mods" are assigned--most notably WZ2100's main resource file (warzone.wdg) and the v1.10 Update (nov.wdg). In order to use a particular mod, you must have its prerequisite mods (if any) installed and activated. Now ideally, if Warzone 2100 couldn't load a mod due to a missing pre-requisite, it should simply ignore the mod. However, instead of ignoring a mod, it blatantly informs you "Resource (mod name here) requires (pre-requisite) to load" and boots you back to your Win9x desktop. Not very helpful now, is it?

However, once the "dark side" of WZ modding has been conquered, the bright side becomes known and the limits expand to match those of the imagination. Once you have finished WZ2100's internal campaign, you'll probably have some questions about where the game heads next. Once the Project overcomes Nexus's forces in America, where do they head next?

That, my friends, depends on whom you ask. NEWST member Imminent Storm has written and entire fan-fiction saga called "Campaign 4: Western Europe" which takes the Project's forces overseas into Europe, and after that he is currently writing "Campaign 5: Central Europe" where the Project's forces are waging a heavy war against a European military power and threat.

Similarly, I have devoted much time as a writer myself fast-forwarding WZ2100's clock to the year 2150 and sending a Project contingent overseas to Asia on a distress call, in two sagas known as the "Red Dragon's War" and "Silver Wings".

And officially, the Project is sending its forces across the Pacific Ocean into Mongolia and China to discover a hostile military force known as the Mangodai, in what will eventually be released as NEWST's entire add-on campaign.

Yet the possibilities do not end there. A lot of talk inside NEWST's private forum has revealed the plausibility for making a "Total Conversion" of Warzone 2100 -- a mod so large, so intense, so comprehensive that when activated you will not even be able to recognize the game as WZ2100. NEWST leader Rman Jack titles it "WZ1100: A Universe of Myth, Magic, & Medieval Mayhem"

When all is said and done, WZ2100 is a pioneer of a title backed up by an unmatched game engine. Pumpkin is dead, but long live Warzone 2100! This title is growing ever more difficult to find, but as the future begins to take shape, this game's prospects continue to grow ever brighter. If there is one thing that is certain, the capacity to customize the game of WZ2100 to your exacting interests is the reason for its long shelf life. Because once you've made a mod for Warzone 2100 (like I have), you can never look at it the same way again.