Hey Salan! Nice to see you here mate. Played your Synergie mod over and over with my friends! so iam really happy to see you here. 
We got us on Steam aswell since 3 years, tell me if you need some testers for your stuff <3
mfg Defi
salan
Last Activity: 05-16-2016 09:19 PM
Change of heart?
Even if youâre busy working on this, Iâd be surprised if you werenât gleaning information from the forum.
itâs not surprising if he/she forget about making another synergies for GD , one thing that make me surprise is how come this thread get 4/5 stars even it didnât give you the mod (even for beta version)⌠seems the voters is your beloved fans eh, salan ?
Salan doing a mod for GD? Expect the mod to be playable at 2020 or soâŚ
Back in the Torchlight II days, it took Salan over 2 years to start working on the Paladin class. You might be thinking: âOh! That was because Salan was busy!â, but that is wrong, as he kept working on the game and started doing a the Warlock class, then the Ranger class, then another class I forgot the name (not the Necro that he made first), then he started to work on another mod for another game, and THEN, years later, he picked up the Paladin againâŚ
So you see, Salanâs biggest problem is that he canât focus for shit⌠he picks something up, then starts doing something else, and so onâŚ
My advice is: Donât get hyped for this mod.
Not to mention the modding tools donât let you get as creative as the torchlight tools do⌠he probably backed away once he realized this.
I havenât followed modding much yet⌠So, as is almost always the case, the âthese are the exact tools we used to create the gameâ bit turned out to be false?
I wouldnât say that, itâs very much possible that these are the same tools, or at least extremely close.
Not sure I understand your previous post then⌠Are you saying the possibilities within the engine itself are limited compared to those in TL2âs engine?
This engine has a number of limitations (e.g. no homing missiles, no morphs from what I can see) that will really test the modderâs creativity.
Those examples are pretty significant, yeah⌠(Though I think TL2 had way too much insta-win skills which had homing.)
Basically, you cannot âtrulyâ create things. You can import textures, sounds, all can be custom made if you wish. You can supposedly import custom models, I donât know if Iâve seen anyone do it yet. I donât know about animations. You can use the custom textures to create custom visual fx, you know so you can make your spells look cool, all that, sure. You are creating all those âfxâ and visuals and what have you.
However, you have to abide by the engines rules, which inhibits progress a bit when you have a certain vision in mind. If you hit enough walls, eventually, you just throw your hands in the air in frustration and say âto hell with this!â. Donât get me wrong, I personally think itâs an amazing engine to mod, I wouldnât be modding it for all these years (same engine as TQ, I modded that one too) if it didnât interest me. Itâs simple, but powerful. Like I said though, these limitations will be a nuisance.
In TL2, there was a mod tutorial to create a new spell which would summon a âpot golemâ, a golem that would grow in power based on how many pots were around it. The game would calculate how many pots had been in a certain area, and then scale the pets stats on that. You could even have the pet destroy its own pots, to further increase its power or heal itself. This cannot be done in GD, as far as I know. GD has some scripting capabilities, but that is beyond the scope of basic modding, and requires some insane handiwork. Then of course TL also has the class mechanics, kill x monsters, get a berserk buff, keep your bar up to maintain dps bonuses, cool stuff like that - not really possible. Among other things as well.
So, back to my first point, you can create all these textures and sounds and fx to make your spell very pretty and original - but itâs basically just going to be a new paint job over an old spell. You get a lot of options for customizing spells, but a projectile spell will always have a certain number of traits that you can choose from, and nothing more. A projectile spell will be able to hit in an aoe (DEE), pass through targets (phantom blade), drop fragments (PRM), shoot a chain out (Primal Strike), or shoot multiple projectiles. You can probably mix all of the above as well, but you canât add any new, cool things - as far as I know, and if I donât know, chances are itâs very difficult. We have cool new templates that we can use, like beams, orbiting projectiles and a couple others but they are very picky on which âmodifierâ templates you can use, soâŚ
In closing, the engine is great for many things, itâs just limited in what you can do based on what is already existing. You cannot create a new spell type, like a Captain America shield throw that bounces to targets and returns, but while its bouncing the player loses shield bonuses. Just gotta work with what youâve got, and that puts people off.
I think though, that if youâre just determined and creative enough, you can still make some fun/ relatively new skills.
Thanks for that detailed response. I think it sounds like thereâs enough flexibility that the common mod player (e.g. me) will not always be aware that mod skill A is simply a reskin of preset skill A with some tweaked parameters, though the mod creator may feel quite constrained.
Iâm sure the end result (granted a given mod is balanced) will nonetheless be satisfying and I look forward to delving into mods next time I go on a totally irresponsible GD binge.
Just adding that salan hasnât logged into his own forum since June.
I think he probably spent too much time on TL2. Canât blame him for moving on, and it looks like the GD modding community is more mature than the TL2 one so his absence is not as significant.
Is this still a thing?
The last post was a month and a half ago, saying thatâs itâs definitely not a thing, because salan (the creator) hasnât even been here in 6.5 months. What do you think?
Didnât catch that.
Yeah I gotta say, announcing youâre going to do something, then just hightailing, preeetttty pathetic.
More seemed like a case of different priorities, not having an actual plan for the mod besides wanting to do it, and also probably not realizing what he was getting into with the GD modding tools. I mean, his TL2 mod is still being developed looking at the site, how would he have the time to also make a GD version?
Yeah, things in life change. They come up. But he could have also came here, cancelled/ apologized, and closed the thread. Thatâs why I said he hightailed.