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[Mephansteras]

It's mostly a question of balance. Some things from the original won't be there, like losing a couple of guys disembarking from the Sky Ranger. Personally, I'm fine with that. I never liked the fact that my guys got shot up immediately after jumping out. But that doesn't mean that it's not going to be anything like the original, threat-wise.

You won't have the same number of casualties from a mission, but if they get the balance right you should still be able to have some casualties occur on a regular basis to keep the tension in the game. You can't lose 5 or 6 guys, obviously, but if it's easy to lose 1 or 2 a mission you'd still have the same sense of concern about moving your guys around that you did in the original. Even more so, with any losses being such a large % of the team.

That's not to say that I wouldn't have been happier with more troops, but I'm not ready to discount their design decision until I've had a chance to test it out myself.

[Dohon]

Gameinformer has an article up that explores the "PC-Port?" and "Modding" issues. Once again, clicky clicky.

Great news for PC fans of XCOM: Enemy Unknown — the game will feature a unique PC tactical UI, and modability will be a strong probability. In an interview with PC Gamer, lead designer Jake Solomon adamantly refuted the idea of a consolized UI for the title.

When asked if the PC build of XCOM: Enemy Unknown would use a similar system to the Xbox controller command prompts seen in screenshots, Solomon said:

No, no, no. Nooo. Oh man, no. I wouldn’t do that to you, are you kidding me? No.

We have a team that’s doing the PC UI, and there are some elements where it can make sense to use the base, like when we have menus and things like that, but our tactical UI is a standalone PC tactical UI.

And so we have a PC tactical UI that we’re working on that is distinct, because obviously mouse driven with a tactical game – being able to select objects of interest – as opposed to a gamepad, where you’re cycling through objects of interest. No, no, we definitely have PC and we plan and we have UI that’s unique.

On the topic of modding, Solomon said:

The idea is that there is the ability for modability. It won’t be anything that we’re committing to for release, but it’s very very easy using Unreal titles. I write almost all my game code in the scripts, and that’s very easy to give to people.

So, high-fives all around?

[Sirus]

Looks fine to me. I'm sure someone will complain about it, no doubt.

[Domenique]

Oh shit, now we are getting a decent UI and Modability? Could this get worse? I bet some idiot will make a classic ufo mod and then I will cry cause this is bad and stuff. Am I complaining enough?

[Aqizzar]

Am I the only one who's not surprised by this?  It's Firaxis, they make PC games and they've always made PC games.  And their headline franchise Civilization has always been mod-able; they're still making money off #4, one of the most customizable games in existence.  And all of the project leads have worked at Firaxis for years.  So yeah, I was never in doubt about this, especially back when Jake Solomon was talking about the pretty crap PC UI of Skyrim.

[Tilla]

Am I the only one who's not surprised by this?  It's Firaxis, they make PC games and they've always made PC games.  And their headline franchise Civilization has always been mod-able; they're still making money off #4, one of the most customizable games in existence.  And all of the project leads have worked at Firaxis for years.  So yeah, I was never in doubt about this, especially back when Jake Solomon was talking about the pretty crap PC UI of Skyrim.

Heck, they still code a lot of the DB stuff in Python and leave the raw files exposed for editing. That is god damn modabilit x10

[IronyOwl]

Am I the only one who's not surprised by this?  It's Firaxis, they make PC games and they've always made PC games.  And their headline franchise Civilization has always been mod-able; they're still making money off #4, one of the most customizable games in existence.  And all of the project leads have worked at Firaxis for years.  So yeah, I was never in doubt about this, especially back when Jake Solomon was talking about the pretty crap PC UI of Skyrim.

Heck, they still code a lot of the DB stuff in Python and leave the raw files exposed for editing. That is god damn modabilit x10

The UI I hadn't really given any thought, but yeah, I always figured that unless somebody stopped them, the game would be "here's everything in a text file" level moddable.

[Virex]

Well, one strike against modability could be that the designers could get lazy and don't implement features that should be in because modders will just add them back in later. Or make the game too easy because modders can make it more difficult.

[IronyOwl]

I suppose, but I'm not sure there's any evidence of this particular developer ever pulling such a thing. I guess there could be problems higher up, though.

[MrWiggles]

Well, one strike against modability could be that the designers could get lazy and don't implement features that should be in because modders will just add them back in later. Or make the game too easy because modders can make it more difficult.

Any citation where this has happen with a non indy game? oO

[Vibhor]

Well, one strike against modability could be that the designers could get lazy and don't implement features that should be in because modders will just add them back in later. Or make the game too easy because modders can make it more difficult.

Any citation where this has happen with a non indy game? oO

Look at any Bethesda game. They are pretty much broken after release.

[MarcAFK]

Xcom was somewhat modable though,i used to play with custom sprites and a few modded weapond. My favorite was the chainsaw.

[IronyOwl]

Well, one strike against modability could be that the designers could get lazy and don't implement features that should be in because modders will just add them back in later. Or make the game too easy because modders can make it more difficult.

Any citation where this has happen with a non indy game? oO

Look at any Bethesda game. They are pretty much broken after release.

To be fair, we don't really have any way of knowing whether this is explicitly because modders can fix it or for other reasons, like complexity or time constraints.

Xcom was somewhat modable though,i used to play with custom sprites and a few modded weapond. My favorite was the chainsaw.

Was it officially moddable or did people just crack it open, though?

[MarcAFK]

Yeah people cracked open the data files and screwed with the hex.
you could do simple stuff with notepad though.

[Vibhor]

Well, one strike against modability could be that the designers could get lazy and don't implement features that should be in because modders will just add them back in later. Or make the game too easy because modders can make it more difficult.

Any citation where this has happen with a non indy game? oO

Look at any Bethesda game. They are pretty much broken after release.

To be fair, we don't really have any way of knowing whether this is explicitly because modders can fix it or for other reasons, like complexity or time constraints.

While you do have a point, it Bethsoft usually releases with a gap of 5 years.
If anything it would highlight their incompetence. The same goes for many developers like GSC, obsidian etc. It took GSC three games to release a stable game and obsidian are still struggling with the stability side.
Co-incidentally, buggiest of the games usually have mod support.