The Tsunamods Community is extremely excited to announce that we are starting work on a brand new
Mod Manager! It is still in the development phase and could take some time to be completed.
However we have a good idea of how it'll work and what it will bring to you.
Which I will explain below.
So lets start with driver running the whole thing.
Introducing the new FFNx Driver!The new manager will be ran using the new FFNx Driver created by TrueOdin
This driver allows the game to run using 4 different render engines.
Of which you can choose from.
- Vulkan
- OpenGL
- DirectX11
- DirectX12
FFNx also allows the use of the DDS texture format.
Which is the standard texture type for many triple-A titles!
PNG is also kept as a stable backup.
Using DDS mods will reduce the stress on your GPU freeing it up to work on the other mods that may need it.
Which in turn will reduce the chances of receiving a Texture Memory crash!
FFNx also centers your game along the Vertical axis so you won't have that annoying thick black bar at the bottom anymore.
The game will sit in the center of the screen!
As well as this FFNx comes with the following features:
- Full screen battles.
- Natural Menu Cursor alignments.
- Multiple new Video Codecs such as WEBM and H.265.
- Multiple new Audio Codecs.
- Compatible with Final Fantasy 8.
- Mod debugging using RenderDoc.
Built in backend option for the new Sister-Ray!Sister-Ray extends the Final Fantasy 7 engine itself allowing us to take full control over the game.
Created by QuantumPencil this system allows many mods that were once impossible a piece of cake!
For example:
- New commands
- New attacks
- New animations
- Playable summons
- In battle PHS
You name it. It can probably be done.
The original boundaries that FF7 once gave us have been broken opening us up to a whole new world of mod creation.
Wanna see it in action? All we ask is that you remember that these all still WIP and at this point is simply a proof of concept:
Playable Ifrit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpBbCvpqwQ8Punisher Stance + Counter Attack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA9JuVCtmREBattle PHS:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE8tXUWI1W0&The Mod Manager (Has no name yet)Now on to the mod manager itself. First of all,
The manager is still in the development stage, so everything I list here has a small chance of not appearing in the final product.
We are confident that these things can and will happen after much discussion but just keep in mind that we aren't promising these things.
Our aim with this is to make it as multi-use as we can. Whilst keeping it as easy and simple to use as possible.
So, what will it be able to do?
Modding FF7, 8 AND 9!First we're aiming to allow it to mod Final Fantasy 7, 8 AND 9! All in 1 program!
Using the FFNx driver to support both FF7 and 8 simultaneously.
You'll be able to swap the game you wish to play at any time.
It'll even keep separate saves of your personal mod setup for each game.
No more Catalog!You know that list you click on to download the mods from in 7th Heaven?
Won't be needing that anymore.
You'll still have a nice list to choose from, however let me tell you why ours will be different.
The way the Catalog works is that specific people have access to its files, and for you to get a new mod to show up, you have to wait on them to add it.
This could be annoying for both types of people. Check it out:
The owners of the Catalog:They have to keep in touch with every mod creator and manually set up their mods so you guys can use them.
I imagine this can be pretty annoying. Especially if the mods get updated constantly. They have to deal with that too.
The users:While you may not always know if a new mod is out there. There pretty much always is.
And for you to be able to use it you have to either wait on them to add it to the Catalog.
Or, you have to learn how to add it yourself.
So we're gonna remove this entirely by adding a fully community driven mod Library!
A place where someone like me, a mod creator, can just go, upload my mod, and boom.
You all have instant access to it!
And for the users, you'll be able to play mods the second the creator thinks it's ready to upload!
No longer will we have to rely on other people and place stress on them to keep us up to date.
This community page will be accessible from your web browser, or the mod manager itself.
It's just the same as using the Catalog, with less hassle.
And everyone can use it too!
Have you got a mod you wanna put out?
You can! Just click upload, and.... done! Everyone will have access to it.
You can even use the new Whitelist feature. Which allows for easy Beta testing.
I'll explain.
The Whitelist FeatureInside the new Mod manager you'll be able to "Sign-Up" and make a profile.
Connecting you to the database.
You'll then have your very own ID number. What this'll do is if a mod goes into Beta,
the creator will simply just add your ID to their whitelist and boom!
The mod they made will suddenly appear on your list. Your officially a Beta tester!
You can even talk to each other and leave comments about the mod via the manager.
Need another reason this is cool, how about this. Mod creators, you listening?
Mod creators need to earn money too right?
For some of them, it helps pay their bills. Which is simply awesome!
Well if everyone had access to everything all of the time then... how would they make money anymore?
The Whitelist!
If people wanted, they could only allow Patrons for example to see their mods.
Or donators via Paypal. Whatever it may be. This system has you covered.
All you need is their ID number and you're set.
Best of all, they can't share them either.
Only you, as the mod author, can add ID's to the whitelist.
We could even have the mods show up but listed as "Whitelist only" to help entice people to want it more.
Entirely up to you mod creators. It's your choice.
Mod storage + download speedSo by now you might be wondering where mods will be located?
If everyone can just click upload then where do they go?
Well we have 2 options for you. When you click the upload button you'll be presented with them.
"Upload to public shared server" Paid for by us. This will also come with options for you guys as mod users or creators to assist us with. They will host them as best we can. The server we have for this is charged based on download usage and not overall content. So if the server really starts to kick off then it could become difficult.
However we have option 2 below.
"Upload via external link"This will allow you to upload your mod anywhere you like.
Just give it your download link and it'll add it to the list giving everyone access to it.
You'll be able to update it, remove it, whatever you like super easy.
By having these 2 options you'll run into bandwidth limits far, far less.
Because the mods are spread out.
Not only that but the speed of downloads should increase too!
Knowing what mods to downloadSo another thing we've considered is that, if everyone can upload mods whenever they like.
Then how do we know if:
A. They're safe? B. They work?
AThe manager will be capable of scanning every file that comes through it for you.
And as a double layer of security, the public shared server also has one too.
Combined with your own systems Anti-Virus they wouldn't have a chance.
B We have a special system coming for that.
As much as we want access to mods to be super easy for everyone,
it of course comes with the downside of mods that don't work, or are simply just buggy.
Well when you use a mod for enough time, which will be given by the author.
You'll be prompted with a message.
This message will ask you if the mod has been working as intended.
So as a community you'll be able to help them out by giving your answer.
If a mod gets enough "Yes" votes then the mod will become "Verified" and gain a little icon informing
you guys that the mod is working.
We, the Tsunamods team are also capable of just assigning a mod as Verified too to help this process.
So what about trolls? Valid question.For the most part we hope that you guys, the players, will respect the mod authors that provide you the entertainment you use and give faithful votes.
If you select "No" then you'll be asked why. Which must contain an answer.
These answers will be logged into our system and sent to both the mod author, and us.
Allowing us all to check if in fact they are correct.
The mod Author may also provide us at Tsunamods, evidence of the vote being incorrect and we'll be able to remove it. Thus eliminating the problem!
Native Steam compatibility!Do you ever wish you could still get Steam achievements?
I know a lot of people do.
Well that'll be possible too! The manager will not require a Game Converter, Fake ISO's, nothing.
Not even built into it. It just isn't needed at all.
Meaning you can still get up that playtime and earn those achievements.
This'll work for all versions too! As long as they are PC versions.
Full Controller support!How many of you wish your controller would just work?
And if it's not that then, what about your D-pad?
I can safely assume that if I asked you to reply to this post with an image of a controller if this applied to you. There would be a few of them....
Well this is in there too! Plug and play, easy as that. No more external programs.
No more messing around, just easy street, straight forward. Play the game.
Will 7th Heaven mods work?Simply put, yes! They will!
You'll be able to use this manager and still have all of the great mods provided by 7th heaven.
I cannot however promise this the other way around.
At this point in time the only thing I can even guess, is that you would be able to unpack mods from this manager and perhaps recreate them inside 7th Heaven.
It is still very early days yet so do not take this as my final word on the subject.
Fully customizable UIEveryone likes to be able to change up the way their program looks.
And we're no different, so you'll be able to do that too.
I can't go into too much detail about this yet as the design isn't final right now.
But you get the idea.
For now, that's all I'm gonna share.
It's still early days and I don't wanna give away everything just yet.
Again I ask you to
please remember that these features may not appear in the final product.
This only applies to the Mod Manager section. Sister-Ray and FFNx you can safely expect that everything listed above will be there.
And in fact already works.
We are confident that these features will come through but on the off-chance they don't,
we don't wanna promise anything yet.
If you'd like to keep the closest possible eye on the development of this please consider joining our
Tsunamods Discord ServerOver there we create and share mods, help each other with bugs, share tutorials or just have a laugh.
If you do decide to come by though please be sure to check out the rules chat.
The server is far bigger than it first appears, you just can't see it until you interact with the last message posted there.
I'll keep you updated here as bigger stages of progress is made.
Thanks everyone and hope you all have a great lockdown!