FTB to partner with Nerd Kingdom to help develop TUG.

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slowpoke

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Jul 29, 2019
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The team at FTB is proud to announce a formal partnership with the team at Nerd Kingdom, the team behind the PC game TUG (www.nerdkingdom.com). Exact details have still to be formalised, however in principle our goal is to help the guys at Nerd Kingdom with the direction of the game and to aid in the development of the modding scene. As part of this partnership I have agreed to take a role at the company as Mods Director. This will allow me to have a direct input in the firms policies when it comes to how mods are going to be integrated into TUG.


So what does this mean for Minecraft, short answer is nothing changes. The current team will all pretty much remain doing what they do best. Eyemaz and Jadedcat are already working hard on the 1.7.10 packs. Prog and his team, continue to make imrovements to our existing launcher, whilst it remains as well as keeping on top of the Unstable 1.7.10 Beta Test Pack and we are also preparing for our third tournament a Pax Prime 2014. My current plan is to supplement the existing team with new members as and when needed for TUG, so as not to lose any of our existing focus on Minecraft related content.


So why TUG? This is a great question. TUG as a game is something that I and other members of our team have had our eye on for over a year now. I was first in contact the team at TUG in June/July of last year where we had informal talks regarding TUG and where it might go in the future and the integration of mods into the game. It seems that a lot of what was said back then was taken on board and TUG may very well develop into a modders delight.


For those people that have yet to come across TUG. Very briefly, like Minecraft and other games it is and will evolve into a open world sandbox environment with survival aspects. However it is a direct design decision that whilst Nerd Kingdom will provide a core gameplay experience for users. The game is best served by opening itself up to the Modding environment for content. To this end the core game for TUG is in of itself a mod built on top of the game engine and every aspect of it will be open for modders to improve upon or change to their hearts content. It is my hope that this will allow us to see a whole new level of modding than what we have seen up to this point enabling us to create even more fantastic content for everyone to enjoy in the future.


Right now TUG is still in a Alpha format and is available for early access on Steam and whilst creative mode is in now for people to start experimenting with the building tools and the game is sufficiently along for people to start to look at modding the game, an update is due in the next month or 2 that will provide a massive update to things like world generation and other parts of the game that will allow modders to really start to work on developing and adding new content.


Finally, I am sure that some of you will have questions for Myself, members of FTB and people from Nerd Kingdom. I hope to have a AMA set up within the next few days on Reddit where you can come along and ask questions relating to TUG. You can also ask questions in this thread and we will try to answer what we can here as well.
 

VapourDrive

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Jul 29, 2019
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I think this is an awesome move! The people at Nerd Kingdom seem very open to TUG becoming a true community and FTB can definitely help them with that! I can picture themed modded versions of TUG being incredibly fun to play and look forward to what the future has to bring, best of luck everyone!
 

FyberOptic

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Jul 29, 2019
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direct input in the firms policies when it comes to how mods are going to be integrated into TUG.

Sorry but I'm confused. TUG already has a modding API. And, without trying to sound rude, how does someone who doesn't develop mods govern policy regarding it? I'm just not sure I understand the job position, is all.
 

Ino

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Jul 29, 2019
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@FyberOptic ahoy! Basically, @slowpoke is a sort of... emissary, I guess? Its more that he has had so much experience interacting with so many modders with so many expectations and needs that his insights help a great deal... and he also helps us open the dialog with you guys (modders) directly. He will not be dictating that policy, specifically... you guys actually will. We will likely end up working out some form of council from the community to convene on topics.
 

Scott Wears

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Jul 29, 2019
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Sorry but I'm confused. TUG already has a modding API. And, without trying to sound rude, how does someone who doesn't develop mods govern policy regarding it? I'm just not sure I understand the job position, is all.

Probably because Slow has allot of experience in modded gaming, He knows allot of developers he can ask advice from and he's a smart guy generally ?
 

Virgoddess

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Jul 29, 2019
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Pretty unimpressed with TUG in general. Early supporter, won't run on my machine - there was zero indication that it wouldn't work when I initially donated.

Aside from that, this announcement sort of irritates me. Your communication with your pack users pretty much sucks - instead of working on that, you partner with another company. Just doesn't make any sense, and doesn't do a thing to reassure me (us?) that FTB and the FTB community is at all a priority. I mean really - you're posting in the weekly news forum, where the last "weekly news" was in June, and the one before that - April.
 

JezuitX

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Jul 29, 2019
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Honestly it's easy to take cheap shots about how little Slow posts on the FTB boards. That said we're kind of in a weird state between mods. I mean there really hasn't been an explosion of mod news since we kind of settled into the 1.6.4 cycle. The biggest news in the past few months bar none has HQM and some neat new 1.7 mods popping up now and again. As things are warming up you can definitely see some new attention flowing back into FTB with the third party mod tab. Also, at the end of the day I doubt Slow is making money hand over fist doing this and we've gotten a load of value from everything FTB has provided to us at no charge (at least I know I have).

As for the TUG news. Honestly I need to see more once the game is further along. I saw the Dire spotlight on the game and it's still rough, but there's definitely promise. If somehow FTB can bring the talented modders of Minecraft over to TUG I'd be very curious to see what they do. Anyway there's my two cents.
 

Virgoddess

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Jul 29, 2019
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Honestly it's easy to take cheap shots about how little Slow posts on the FTB boards. That said we're kind of in a weird state between mods. I mean there really hasn't been an explosion of mod news since we kind of settled into the 1.6.4 cycle. The biggest news in the past few months bar none has HQM and some neat new 1.7 mods popping up now and again. As things are warming up you can definitely see some new attention flowing back into FTB with the third party mod tab. Also, at the end of the day I doubt Slow is making money hand over fist doing this and we've gotten a load of value from everything FTB has provided to us at no charge (at least I know I have).

As for the TUG news. Honestly I need to see more once the game is further along. I saw the Dire spotlight on the game and it's still rough, but there's definitely promise. If somehow FTB can bring the talented modders of Minecraft over to TUG I'd be very curious to see what they do. Anyway there's my two cents.

No where did I take a "cheap shot" at Slow. I expressed my frustration, in a very respectful manner, in the appropriate place. In fact, I don't give a crap how often Slow posts here - the news updates could come from anyone on the team - but he's the one who runs the team, so of course my message was directed at him.

When something is provided as a free service, that does not render the users of said service unable to express their opinions. The assumption otherwise is asinine. You would think criticism would be welcome - who doesn't want to improve their customer relations? The updates we get to Minecraft are free - I suppose no one should ever complain about those?

And you're the one who mentioned money, not me. My complaint has nothing to do with money, whatsoever.

I'm not asking for the mod packs to hurry up. I'm not asking for the new launcher. I'm not asking Slow to post more. I'm not complaining about anything but the lack of steady, reliable communication from the FTB team. I don't think that's an outrageous request at all. Find a person whose only job is to communicate professionally with the public - interact on twitter, on the forums, on reddit. A social media coordinator or something. Someone that will post weekly updates and field any questions. It's not rocket science - it's good business sense. And yes, I have sent these suggestions to Slow before, along with other ideas to help in the area I feel FTB is the weakest. IMO they make the best mod packs out there - but they are really lacking in community relations.
 

hellraizer1967

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Jul 29, 2019
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Well said!!! I was in the process of posting a reply when you beat me to it. Thank you, stated much better then I was going to put it.
 

xbony2

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Jul 3, 2013
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I want to know specifically about compatibility with other operating system. I obviously can't touch this game with a ten foot pole (OS X user here) and neither can my linux cousins. Are you we going to see this game on other operating systems, or not?
 

Ino

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Jul 29, 2019
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I want to know specifically about compatibility with other operating system. I obviously can't touch this game with a ten foot pole (OS X user here) and neither can my linux cousins. Are you we going to see this game on other operating systems, or not?

Absolutely going to open up to some more platforms. DX11 for our first iteration was very intentional to test limitations and see how we can scale back.... so yea... We will likely be able to open up to DX10 as well as soon as we start the port to OpenGL3.
 
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