There are !!! 3 !!!, count em, 3 Nid mods..
- Kavey's Tyranids is 80% complete including fully balanced and AI coded completely. More unit/building rigging/animation work needs to occur to get it through.
- Styrer's Splinterfleet is 95% complete and needs final coding, tweaks, and AI to set it onward to the public, and finally..
- Lockee's Tyranids has 5-7 new units ingame already and UI going in.
Now you want Nids from Relic? bahahahah.. by that time, all Nid bases will be covered.
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THREE??
I have only heard of Kaveman's Mod, and I thought that one was stalled out in inactivity for months or years.
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With all the work that has to go into creating a non-human race for DoW or DC or any of it, I still can't figure out why these guys refuse to get together, combine their efforts into one Tyranid Mod for example, so that they can release something semi-complete sometime this year rather than releasing five or ten years from now or never releasing at all. Why doesn't Thud work on getting them together and making them aware of each other, since Thud seems to be the only one who knows that they even exist?
Of course, if the Stryer One has no AI to play against in skirmish mode, then I'm not all that much more interested in it than one with Winter Assault AI that is only 1/3rd the way done.
Oh yes, Thud always says that these things are closer than they really are. But, the truth is that Thud is made part of their team because they want his AI, so he gets to see the betas that might indeed be 80% or 95% or some such. But, the 99.9% of the rest of us don't even get to know that these things even exist -- never heard of Stryer or Lockee before now, let alone that they are supposedly working on Tyranids. And, for the Mods we do know about, such as the Kaveman mod, again, 99.9% of us only have access to an ancient version that's probably something on the order of 1/3rd complete.
So, again, we have to rely upon Thud's honesty and hope that it simply isn't all hype, and meanwhile yet another year goes by, and still nothing new has been released to the public where Tyranids are concerned.
It would be nice if these mod makers would release a bit more often, or even release, so that someone else in the world besides Thud gets to be made aware that some of these things exist.
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Yes, it's nice for Thud that Thud is aware that these things exist. And, yes, it's very nice when Thud condescends to tell us about these things from time to time. But, there are huge gaps there as well, let alone the huge vacant gaps that many of us have even knowing that these things exist, let alone the huge insurmountable fact that 99.9% don't have the opportunity to play or see or even touch these things, followed up by the fact (if past history is any indication) that due to the hugeness of the task, we are still looking at years more of time before anything will be released to the public if anything Completed Tyranid is ever released to the public.
Therefore, I can't figure out why Thud doesn't get them together and have them pool their efforts once in awhile.
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Another thing that confuses me about all of this -- yes, this guy here is radically confused -- is that there seem to be new mods in progress all the time on RelicNews. Instead of creating or starting a new mod that will never be finished, why don't some of these people join one of the existing mods like Alf's Tau Mod, or Kaveman's Mod, or Shin's Eldar Mod, and actually get one of these things finished this year rather than five years from now or never? I don't know these people: are they so exclusive or restrictive that they won't allow anyone new to join their team? Is that the problem? So, someone who wants to do something has to go out and start his own race mod?
There was Compiler's new Inquisition race and soon there will be a DC version of Steel Legion again, but those are humie mods and/or armor mods. The truly alien mods seem to all be bogged down at 80% in the versions that Thud gets to see, and they are all stuck at 30% to 50% or old Winter Assault versions for the versions that Joe Public gets to see and play with.
I guess at this point, I would like to see less of something new, and more in terms of completing what's already 80% and eternally holding at 80%.
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Anyway, Crazy Theta. He actually wants to see some of these things get done before people quit or before the sun goes cold. I guess the thing to do is go away for another half a year, come back when Soulstorm is released, and see that everything is still at 80% complete in Thud's versions, and nothing new in the public versions.
I guess that's what I liked most about the AI Mod, there's usually a couple of releases per year -- yes, there's no new models and no new races and no new balance in the AI Mod, but there are periodic releases. I sometimes wonder if the race mods were to do periodic releases if it would keep the interest and focus high enough to accelerate the next release, like what's happened with Compiler's race and seems to be happening with Steel Legion as well. Semi-annual releases seems to bring in new followers, as well as new modders and testers who want to join the cause and help get the next release out. I think some of the other race mods could benefit from that example as well.
Oh well, what does Theta know? Nothing! Thud is the only one who gets to see most of these things, from rise to fall, and for the rest of us, these things are totally unknown.